For 15 seasons, Ben McCollum ran the best Division II basketball program in the country at Northwest Missouri State. He had an 81.3 winning percentage, including a seven-year stretch of 224-16 (.933), and four national titles, with COVID stopping a potential fifth for a 31-1 squad in 2020.
The teams were good. So were the players, who had futures as transfers to high-major D-I ball, European pro leagues and even stops in the NBA.
And so there were times McCollum would do what everyone who has ever coached or played in a lower division does, let alone everyday work life: He wondered how he and his guys would fare if they ever got the chance to compete at the highest level. A small-town lawyer arguing in front of the Supreme Court. An architect designing a Manhattan skyscraper instead of a local, low-slung office.
In McCollom’s case, it was: What could one of his great D-II teams do in Division I?
“You always wonder,” McCollum said. “We would sit around and discuss it.”
The D-II titles were glorious. But still …
“Playing in the Division I NCAA tournament is more of a personal thing, a chance to challenge yourself to a certain level,” he said.
A year ago, Drake, the Des Moines, Iowa-based member of the the D-I Missouri Valley Conference, hired McCollum to take over after Darian DeVries left to coach West Virginia. Drake had won 28 games last year, but upon DeVries’ departure, the roster was immediately gutted — 12 players transferred out, two more graduated and another appears to have just quit basketball.
McCollum needed an entirely new team, and although he didn’t set out to prove as much, what has resulted is a chance to answer that age-old question of what happens when the small-time get a shot at the big-time.
Four of Drake’s starting five all arrived with McCollum from Northwest Missouri, each of them previously deemed by all of Division I to be not good enough for Division I. Another top scorer is a junior college transfer and two more contributors are freshmen. Of the nine Drake players who regularly see action, seven were not in Division I last year, while two players transferred in from Wyoming.
When rival fans took a look at the Bulldogs roster last offseason, the team was dubbed “D-II Drake.” D-II coach. D-II players.
The Bulldogs are 27-3.
No one is laughing now.
The Missouri Valley is no joke either. Ten different league teams have reached the Sweet 16 since 2000, including two runs to the Final Four — Wichita State in 2013, Loyola in 2018.
The Bulldogs won the regular season title by two games and are deserving of a NCAA bid no matter what happens in the conference tournament this weekend.
This is proving to be more than just another dangerous, potential bracket-busting team; it’s a social/sporting experiment worth cheering on.
It’s been a magical run for the 43-year-old coach and his roster of believers. They arrived together with little idea what was to come because there was almost no D-I experience — the two Wyoming transfers, Cam Manyawu and Kael Combs combined for 11 career starts.
“I didn’t really have any expectations on the season,” McCollum said. Then, at an early season tournament in Charleston, South Carolina, the Bulldogs beat ACC member Miami, recent Final Four participant Florida Atlantic and then Vanderbilt of the SEC, all by double digits to win the title.
“I thought, ‘OK, we might be pretty good,’” McCollum said.
From there it was no different than any team he ever coached, where player development, even incremental, is his focus. You don’t get ready-made lottery picks at Northwest Missouri State. You have to work.
“We want to make players better,” McCollum said. “We are old school in that regard. It’s a cliché, but it works — get a little bit better each and every day and let the results take care of themselves.”
His D-II transfers quickly looked like D-I stars. His top three leading scorers all came from Northwest Missouri — Bennett Stirtz (18.9 ppg), Daniel Abreu (11.0) and Mitch Mascari (10.4) — with Stirtz being named the Larry Bird Missouri Valley Player of the Year.
Turns out what they used to do to Missouri Western and Fort Hays State, they could do to almost anyone.
McCollom didn’t set out to prove that his D-II teams could play with all but the best of D-I. Nor did he expect them to be as successful as they’ve been.
He said he took the guys he knew because he was trying to reconstruct the Drake program and wanted to install the proper mindset and work ethic.
“The biggest thing for me was to build the program for the long haul,” McCollom said. “We wanted to sell out on the character of the kids. I knew these kids. I knew their character. I knew their toughness, I knew what they would be like through thick and thin. I knew their mental makeup.
“If you focus on building for the long haul, the success will come,” he continued. “If you try to pursue results too quickly, you are going to struggle.”
It turns out doing it the right way for the future proved to be the right way for the present, meaning one of the best stories of March might serve as a clarion call for all those players and coaches and teams and everyday people who dream of being more than just a label.
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