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With four weeks to play, I'll go out on a limb and predict that a guy named Greg(g) will win the Missouri Valley Conference coach of the year award.

It's been 15 years since the honor went to someone whose team didn't earn at least a share of the conference championship. Given the positions of their teams heading into the final seven league games, Creighton's Greg McDermott or Wichita State's Gregg Marshall probably will walk off with the award.

The last time the honoree didn't coach a first-place team was in 1997, when Eldon Miller guided Northern Iowa to a share of fourth place. Northern Iowa previously had not finished higher than fifth in its first five seasons in the league.

I have nothing against the to-the-victors-go-the-spoils philosophy that now dominates voting for postseason awards. The only drawback is that notable performances can be overlooked when just picking the coach, or the best player, from the winning team.

Mark Phelps is turning in a performance worth recognition this season at Drake. The Bulldogs aren't going to win the championship. At this point, they're still probably more concerned about making sure they stay out of the play-in round in St. Louis.

But Phelps' team, which has been missing two top inside players this season, stands tied for third place heading into February. The Bulldogs are 13-9 overall, with their latest win being in triple overtime against Wichita State last Saturday.

The win came three days after Drake gave Creighton everything it could handle until the Bluejays used a late spurt to pull away. Those two efforts earned Phelps some unsolicited praise from Creighton's McDermott.

"The job that Coach Phelps has done at Drake with two of his front-line guys out is really incredible," McDermott said.

Phelps knew coming into the season that Seth VanDeest might not play. VanDeest, who started at center as a freshman and sophomore, suffered a shoulder injury in the summer that required surgery. Even a best-case recovery scenario wouldn't have had him ready at the start of the season.

As it's turned out, the 6-foot-9 VanDeest hasn't played a minute this season. His projected backup, 6-8 Reece Uhlenhopp, has played a total of one minute because of a stress fracture.

Their absences have forced Phelps to juggle his inside rotation. He's moved forward Jordan Clarke into the middle and backed him up with Kraidon Woods. Phelps has had to accelerate the development of redshirt freshman forward Jeremy Jeffers, who has started 14 of the team's 22 games.

They've been serviceable at times and excellent at others. They've teamed with a strong backcourt to put Drake in position to claim one of the top four seeds in the conference tournament.

Phelps chuckled when asked Tuesday if he ever thinks about where his team might be if VanDeest and Uhlenhopp weren't taking up space on the bench.

"We think about it, but what good does that do you?" Phelps said. "It does make us excited for the future. This is a forced redshirt season that Seth and Reece have to take and they probably should have taken when they first got here. We couldn't afford to do that with them.

"There's going to be a silver lining for those guys and hopefully this basketball team."

The Bulldogs will lose only Woods and backup point guard Kurt Alexander off this season's team. They will return two of the league's top players in wings Rayvonte Rice and Ben Simons. Rice ranks third in the Valley in scoring with a 17.3 average, while Simons is fifth at 16.2.

The 6-8 Simons, who leads the league in 3-pointers per game (2.5), turned in one of the most impressive performances of the season in the win over Wichita State. He scored 29 points, shot 50 percent from the field (11 of 22) and from 3-point range (3 of 6) and grabbed eight rebounds.

And he did that while playing 53 of the highest-energy minutes that Phelps can remember from a player.

"He was incredible," Phelps said. "We have some sets where it looks like he's running around like a chicken with his head cut off. There is some method to that madness, but he obviously has great cardiovascular conditioning."

Simons and his teammates face a tough challenge this week as they attempt to build on the momentum that has produced five victories in seven games. Drake plays at Indiana State on Wednesday, then takes on Missouri State at home Saturday.

Win both games, and the chances improve of avoiding a Thursday night game in St. Louis.

"I sense a steady hunger out of this team," Phelps said. "The guys feel that we have a pretty good team, and if they play the right way, we can win more games. We have enough talent that if we play the right way with high energy, we can beat anybody.

"At the same time, if we don't play that way, we can lose to anyone we play. Our guys are excited to keep getting better."

Contact the writer:

402-679-2298, steve.pivovar@owh.com

twitter.com/PivOWH

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