If 'The Best Is Yet To Come' for Drake, Now Is the Time

Mark Phelps didn't say, "The best is yet to come" just once. He said it twice today at Drake's basketball lunch at the OverTime restaurant in Urbandale. What the Bulldogs' coach meant was that better things are on the way [hopefully this season] for a team that takes records of 12-8 overall and 5-4 in the Missouri Valley Conference into Wednesday night's game against Creighton [ranked No. 14 in the coaches' poll and No. 15 in the AP sportswriters' poll]. "We're building this program on a solid foundation," Phelps told fans after they'd visited the buffet line. Solid foundation or not, the Bulldogs are confronted by their most challenging week of the season to date. After the visit tonight by a Creighton team that has records of 18-2 and 8-1, Wichita State [17-3 and 8-1] comes to the Knapp Center Saturday night. The first thing Drake sharpshooter Ben Simons [pictured] said when he got behind the microphone was that he and the other players were urging fans to "pack the Knapp Center" for tomorrow's 7:05 p.m. game. The trouble is, the 7,002-seat building hasn't been packed all season. Drake is averaging only 3,928 fans per home game, with highs of 5,876 for an 83-68 loss to Northern Iowa [the only home defeat of the season] and 5,665 for a 74-65 victory over Iowa State. The decision over the Cyclones looks even more impressive now that Fred Hoiberg's team is doing so well in the Big 12 Conference. Creighton certainly isn't a one-man team, but sophomore Doug McDermott is the nation's No. 3 scorer with a 23.2 average. Phelps stressed that it's important for his team to keep the ball away from a player who toiled in the shadow of Harrison Barnes [now starring at North Carolina] at Ames High School. Keeping the ball away from McDermott will, of course, be about as easy as keeping a T-bone steak away from a hungry German Shepherd.