Sports Commentary

During the second weekend in March, I had the opportunity to cover the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament after the Drake Men’s Basketball team’s historic regular season. My experience was nothing short of a dream come true.

For the MVC Tournament, also known as “Arch Madness,” I announced the three games the Drake Men’s Basketball team played in on Drake’s student radio station “The Dog at Drake University.” In addition, I got to attend the press conference for the Bulldogs after each of their games in the tournament.

Before each game, I spent a couple of hours making my own notes. It included both likely starting lineups and substitutions, statistics for the starters, team notes about accomplishments from that season and previous matchups with their opponent and season high statistics for each player. Having all of that on one piece of paper made announcing much easier for me, instead of having to flip through pages for each team in the media packets.

The first two games in Arch Madness, I was placed in the second row, in line with the basketball hoop by the Drake Marching Band. I had a view of the court, but it was hard to see beyond half court.

Nonetheless, I made it work and I was able to call the first two games with enthusiasm. Whether it was Isaia Howard setting a career high 21 points against the Southern Illinois Salukis or the Bulldogs making a comeback in the semifinals against the Belmont Bruins, it was an absolute thrill.

Then, came the press conferences after each game. I was able to talk to the players and head coach Ben McCollum about the performance of the team.I got answers about what the mindset of the team was going into the semifinals, as well as what changed for the Bulldogs during halftime against the Bruins when they were down nine points.

For the Bulldogs game against the Salukis, Drake was in control for a majority of the game. With Howard breaking out and Bennett Stirtz continuing his dominance from the regular season, it wasn’t a game I was really worried about.

The game against the Belmont Bruins was a different story. The Bulldogs didn’t look as sharp in the first half and I began to worry about an upset brewing right in front of me. Alas, the Bulldogs got it together, with McCollum describing what changed and who led the team in the second half.

“I thought we all buckled down and we got defensive rebounds, but I would say if Bennett [Stirtz] really triggered the offense, I would say Isaiah Jackson triggered the defense.

The first two games felt like I was living in a dream — everything was surreal. That all changed when the Bulldogs played the Bradley Braves in the Arch Madness championship.

My seat was moved from the second row, in line with a basketball hoop, to a courtside seat, in line with the top of the key. I was sitting in the same row as the national announcers for this game, which included one of my personal favorites, Kevin Harlan (who I also got to meet and share a conversation with before the game).

I was getting texts from my family and friends, saying, “Will, you’re on TV,” and my sister said she yelled out, “That’s my brother,” when she saw me on TV while hanging out with her friends. I was smiling cheek to cheek reading these texts, knowing my dream was coming true.

During all 40 minutes played in the MVC Championship, it was the best game I have ever announced, both with what was happening on the court and the quality of my announcing.

As the game began winding down and the Bulldogs were pulling away, I started realizing that I was no longer calling just another basketball game. I was about to announce the Bulldogs punching their ticket to March Madness.

The buzzers sounded at the end of regulation and I said the words that I had been waiting all weekend to say: “Your Drake Bulldogs are going to March Madness! Your Bulldogs are going dancing!”

I almost felt like I was outside of my body saying those words. I could not believe what I just witnessed and what I got to say.

During the last press conference after the Bulldogs had won the championship, I saw something that I hadn’t seen before: the chemistry of this team.

The starting lineup, which consisted of graduate students Daniel Abreu, Mitch Mascari and Isaiah Jackson, junior Bennett Stirtz and sophomore Cam Manyawu, along with McCollum, were all on the stage. They didn’t just look like teammates. They looked like brothers.

There was no tension in the room at all. They were able to answer everyone’s questions — sometimes they had fun with their answers, other times they would poke fun at each other and the players and media would start laughing.

An example of this was after the Arch Madness championship in the press conference. I had asked Cam Manyawu why he played the second half in a different jersey than the first half (someone had gotten blood on his jersey so he wanted a new jersey instead of cleaning his current one).

After he described what happened, McCollum chimed in, poking fun at Manyawu’s jersey being tight, and the rest of the team started laughing along.

Outside of press conferences, they still were a tightly knit group. Driving back from St. Louis, my friends and I took a wrong exit to take a break from driving and ended up at a Casey’s.

We pulled into the parking lot to discover the team bus sitting in the parking lot. We walked inside to the entire team taking a snack break.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people buy that much ice cream from Casey’s before. Some of the players initiated small conversations with my friends and I.

It was one of the funniest experiences I’ve ever had on a road trip, but it was also really cool to see the team as normal people. Just some college students heading back to campus, stocking up on ice cream and other snacks for the last leg of the trip.

A team that had won 30 games on the court, never seen before in Drake men’s basketball history, was able to turn it on and be serious on the court and then relax off the court. It made my experience mean that much more to me, to see that this team not only played well together on the court, but were so tightly knit off the court.

When I was driving back to Des Moines with my friends after the championship, I just stared out the window, thinking just how lucky I was to have this opportunity. I was and still am incredibly grateful to be the only representative for Drake student media in St. Louis.