Darian DeVries’ demeanor said it all after Drake’s 82-77 double-overtime loss at Evansville last Wednesday night. The first-year coach spoke in hushed tones outside his team’s locker room, unsure of the status of Nick Norton, the Bulldogs’ injured star graduate transfer guard.
DeVries’ worries turned out to be warranted. On Friday, Drake announced that Norton, who spent his first four years at UAB, will need surgery to repair a torn ACL in his left knee and will miss the remainder of Drake’s promising season. It’s a devastating blow to the Bulldogs, who went 11-2 in the nonconference portion of their schedule, the most nonleague wins in program history and their best start since they opened 22-1 in 2007-08. It’s also one of many reasons why the Missouri Valley Conference race looks like it’ll be wide open this season.
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“I don’t even know if we can quantify it, what he means to us and what he’s done to this point in the year,” DeVries told The Athletic. “We’ll have to have some guys fill in and find some roles, but obviously he’s a huge piece of what we’ve done to this point.”
Drake was picked to finish ninth in the 10-team Valley. Norton, though, was probably the primary reason why that projection seemed low coming out of the nonconference season. The 5-foot-10, 170-pound point guard was averaging 14.7 points, 6.2 assists and 4.1 rebounds in 33 minutes per game. He shot 37.8 percent from 3-point range, and he had only 23 turnovers in 13 games. He had 11 points, 10 assists and six rebounds in Drake’s nine-point loss at Iowa State, where the Bulldogs led by five with 7:12 to go. He also posted the first triple-double in program history since 1989, totaling 18 points, a school-record 17 assists and 13 rebounds against just one turnover in a victory over North Dakota State. His 31 points, including 21 in two overtimes, helped Drake seal one of its two best wins, a 103-100 victory over San Diego in Las Vegas.
Before league play began, Drake had a few other strong wins on its résumé. The Bulldogs topped Boise State and Texas State, both top-125 teams in Ken Pomeroy’s efficiency rankings, and they beat New Mexico State, ranked 74th on KenPom, the day before the San Diego win. Their other loss came at Colorado. As a result, Drake climbed to 134th in the KenPom ratings, and DeVries’ team looked like a squad built to compete for a top-five spot in the Valley.
In putting together his first roster at Drake, DeVries needed a guy such as Norton, a veteran point guard who was an All-Conference USA selection at UAB. The Bulldogs, coming off a 17-17 season, only returned three players from last season — standout post Nick McGlynn; forward Antonio Pilipovic, who only appeared in five games last season; and point guard Noah Thomas, who averaged 12.1 minutes per game. The roster includes five true freshmen, two graduate transfers and three junior-college newcomers. The starting lineup included two grad transfers, two juco transfers and McGlynn.
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Norton was the glue that held the group together. Evansville junior guard K.J. Riley said Drake “flows and gets it going through him.”
The same night of Norton’s injury and Evansville’s double-overtime win, Valparaiso’s Markus Golder banked in a 60-footer at the buzzer to give the Crusaders a big home win against Illinois State, which was picked to finish second in the Valley. It was the highlight of a night that featured three league games decided by five or fewer points, and it was the first illustration of just how competitive this league could be.
Loyola-Chicago, with two conference wins, including a 35-point drubbing of Indiana State, still looks like the favorite. Southern Illinois, with a pair of grind-it-out wins over Missouri State and Northern Iowa, looks like it’ll be in hot pursuit.
But after those two, good luck getting a read on the rest of the league. Teams such as Evansville and Valpo are providing plenty of reasons to second-guess those preseason predictions.
(Photo of Markus Golder: Ethan Miller/Getty Images)