What's with Drake playing Waldorf College?

[squeaky]

3+ weeks into the season and the other MVC schools have been playing teams like Illinois, Rutgers, St. Johns, Oklahoma State, Wisconsin, Arkansas, Minnesota, George Mason, Nebraska, LSU, Washington, and Tulane this week.
But Drake played some school called Waldorf College last night. They are an NAIA school. But not just any NAIA school, but a Division II NAIA school. Thank good ness Drake won.

Waldorf had been 5-1 and was averaging 110 points a game. They play a style similar to Grinnell College. But drake beat them 104-51. Drake outrebounded them 65-21.
Maybe this cupcake is what Drake needed to get going.

[Da Coach]

Here is an article about the game

http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061126/SPORTS02040101/611260347/-1/SPORTS04

[Braves4Life]

D-II?

I didn't even know there was a D-II for NAIA

Are they sure this wasn't the Waldorf intramural champs

[tornado]

By the score alone you can tell this was a mismatch.
Drake pounded these guys, and it doesn't take a genius to see that this Waldorf College probably is a
weaker opponent than say a Eureka College or even a weak juco.

But if you read that story and look at the box score, you under stand why the Drake players got such an opportunity to artificially pad their stats. Only one of their top 8 players is over 6'3". Waldorf has only been a four year school for 3 years, and their wins this season have been over Pillsbury Baptist Bible College, Moody Bible Institute, Andrews, Southwest Christian, and their loss was to Grace University.

The Waldorf guys were way shorter and weaker than anyone on Drake.
Drake outscored Waldorf 61-14 in the paint and outrebounded Waldorf 65-21.
Waldorf played the game like an exhibtion and marched 13 different players in, none for over 22 minutes, and none of the starters for more than 18 minutes.
But Drake played all their starters more than that and really went with just 8 guys most of the way, with kids like Jonathan Cox, Brent Heemskerk, and Adam Emmenecker who used to be starters getting only 7-9 minutes.

I wouldn't imagine this kind of a game benefits a D-I team any more than playing in the parking lot with a bunch of grade schoolers. Why they ever scheduled this game.....maybe the AD at Waldorf has some pictures of Dr. Tom ......naww.....

[cpacmel]

Drake might have been in the same situation as ISU was with Cincy. Cincy didn't notify ISU to til very late in the summer that they would not be coming to Redbird this season.

ISU had to scramble and fill that date they had saved with Cincy, and could only get Lewis University to come on that day.

Nothing like playing them in middle December, right before the start of the Valley season.

[Da Coach]

I could understand a schedule snafu that forced them to add a Div II school like Lewis. I would have no problem with seeing Lewis or Quincy or SIUE or Winona State for 1 game. But Waldorf?, a Div II NAIA with a roster that wouldn't beat most good high school teams?

That is an embarrassment. Can anyone find the last MVC school to schedule a Div II NAIA school? I can't believe they couldn't have gotten a school like Northwest Missouri or Winona.
Oops, I forgot, they already played Winona, and got beat. Now I understand why they wanted Waldorf.
BTW, the attendance was listed as 3,117.

[mike radigan]

Was that the basketball teams playing each other or the hotel staffs?

[tornado]

Drake might have been in the same situation as ISU was with Cincy. Cincy didn't notify ISU to til very late in the summer that they would not be coming to Redbird this season.

ISU had to scramble and fill that date they had saved with Cincy, and could only get Lewis University to come on that day.

Nothing like playing them in middle December, right before the start of the Valley season.

mel-one article points out that Drake seems to like playing a really creampuff opponent every season about this time, so this appears to be a planned thing.
In the past four years they have played Shawnee State, Cornell College (IA), Simpson, Grinnell, and Hawaii Hilo, all as regular season games.

[Bravesguy]

Was that the basketball teams playing each other or the hotel staffs?

Didn't IPFW play their inaugural D-I game against a really weak NAIA team and get beat?

And Indiana State opened last season against Central State an NAIA.

And last year Savannah State broke their two year, 30+ game losing streak against a weak NAIA D-II, Wilberforce.

Then I recall probably the absolutely worst creampuff ever played by a D-I team that was discussed here about a year ago.
Here is the link to that discussion:

http://www.bradleyfans.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=1631

On 11/21/05 Division I Wofford beat a team named Toccoa Falls 81-15.
Toccoa Falls, isn't an NCAA school and they arent even NAIA.
They are a tiny Christian College that are members of a Christian school acssociation, but they surely must be the lowest caliber opponent ever scheduled by a D-I.
By the way, Wofford just beat Cincinnati last week, and Indiana State is playing another of these tiny Christian colleges tonight.

[chitownBUB]

While we are on the topic of opponents,
did anyone note that other than the loss to BU, Winona State is still undefeated.

Winona also beat Drake and Minnesota in their other exhibitions, and so far in their season, they are 3-0 with an
average victory margin of 25 points.
They are outscoring their opponents on average, 92-57.
John Smith is averaging 17.3 points, 12 rebounds,
their point guard Zach Malvik is averaging 15.3 points, 7 assists.

Also Northwestern Missouri State is playing well at 4-1, and SIU-E is also doing well at 2-1 since their appearance against BU.

[mike radigan]

[Da Coach]

They missed a great marketing ploy for this game at Drake.
They should have billed it as the Battle of the Hotels, and offered a trip to Chicago to stay at the winning team's hotel namesake to one lucky fan in attendance.
With such shrewd marketing they might have boosted the attendance over 3200!

By the way, I have stayed at the Drake in Chicago, and it is a dump. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. They have spruced up the lobby in the stately old hotel, but the rooms are small, musty, dirty, dark, and they stink. I suspect the Waldorf is better.

[DUBulldog]

Drake might have been in the same situation as ISU was with Cincy. Cincy didn't notify ISU to til very late in the summer that they would not be coming to Redbird this season.

ISU had to scramble and fill that date they had saved with Cincy, and could only get Lewis University to come on that day.

Nothing like playing them in middle December, right before the start of the Valley season.

mel-one article points out that Drake seems to like playing a really creampuff opponent every season about this time, so this appears to be a planned thing.
In the past four years they have played Shawnee State, Cornell College (IA), Simpson, Grinnell, and Hawaii Hilo, all as regular season games.

Drake tries to play an opponent from a lower division in Iowa every season....since there are no D-2 schools in the state, that generally means D-3. This year, they scheduled an NAIA school instead. I couldn't begin to guess why they picked this particular school. I know they'd rather play a local cream puff rather than an Arkansas-Pine Bluff. Probably a lot cheaper to play the local team.

Shawnee State and Hawaii-Hilo were not games that Drake scheduled. Shawnee State was part of the Las Vegas Invitational last season (Shawnee also played at Boston College as part of that tourney)....and Hawaii-Hilo was part of a tournament in Hilo.

Somebody earlier on this thread mentioned Toccoa Falls....I think I found an even worse team. The game before they played Drake, Waldorf beat some school called Crossroads College 135-29. The scary thing is.......there are other teams that have already lost to Crossroads College!