Bryan Burwell

The legends of March Madness are the larger-than-life heroes whose exploits turn them into instant NBA millionaires and future Hall of Fame icons. You can normally find them on your bracket sheet in the special corners where No. 1 and No. 2 seeds dwell. But for me, the NCAA Tournament is about so much more than that. It’s about the small fries and the Cinderellas. It’s about the 100-to-1 shots you’ve never heard of, those magical underdogs who jump off your bracket sheet and right into the unsuspecting consciousness of a basketball-crazed nation for one glorious day, one wild weekend or one extended joyride to the Sweet 16 or Final Four.

So allow me to introduce you to Cinderella.

Chances are unless you are a true and incurable hoop fanatic, you’ve probably seen little or any highlights of 18th-ranked Drake playing. So here’s a little advice: Find a tape, order a highlight DVD or make sure you catch their act when the Missouri Valley Conference champions show up in the NCAA Tournament. Circle their names on your bracket sheets and pencil them into the Sweet 16.

If you missed their entertaining run through the Valley tournament, including a 79-49 rout of Illinois State, what a shame. You should have been there to witness the continuing tale of one of the most fun-lovin’, mad-bombin’, wildly enjoyable college basketball teams you’ll ever see.

Watching them play is one of those wonderful gifts that transports you for just a moment into that dreamy place called hoop heaven. This is what it’s like there:

Catch and shoot. Dribble and shoot. Run through a double screen, dance along the baseline, curl in the corner, step so far back that your sneaker heels cast a shadow on the sideline, catch just the slightest glimpse of the hoop and … well, shoot. Step out beyond the three-point arch and shoot. Step waaaay beyond the arch and shoot. Miss from 20 feet ... take three steps back to 25 feet ... and what else?

Awww shoot. Then shoot some more.

The 28-4 Bulldogs added the MVC tournament title to their regular-season trophy with a dazzling offense that is both fundamentally sound and extraordinarily wide open, and somehow first-year coach Keno Davis proves without a doubt that these two previously incompatible concepts can peacefully coexist on a basketball court.

Drake’s style of play is simple and delightful. Everybody can pass, everybody can shoot. Get off the bus and shoot. Open the hotel door and shoot. Off the water bucket, over the mascot, under the cheerleader’s pom-pom ... nothin’ but net ... shoot, shoot, shoot. The beauty is that Davis’ system does not turn the game into some And-1 mix tape abomination of the up-tempo game. He merely finds guys who can create sweet string music and indoctrinates them immediately with the most delicious words a kid could ever hear:

“I just tell 'em, ‘‘I’ll let you know when to stop shooting,’ ” Davis said. “Until then, just keep doing it.”

And by “doing it,” Davis means everyone has the green light to jack up a shot if he’s wide open ... and with the Bulldogs, “wide open” is an entirely subjective thing.

Is there such a thing as a bad shot in the Drake game plan?

“Hmmmm,” said sophomore guard Josh Young, his MVC championship hat cocked cool to the side. “Maybe if we’re at the end of the game and we’re trying to kill the clock. Other than that ... if you’re open, shoot.”

Klayton Korver let his “Missouri Valley Conference Champions” placard drop to the floor for a second, thought about the question and grinned. “Not many,” he said with the gleeful smile of a kid who just spent his entire senior season with the ultimate green light.

“Coach actually gets mad with you if you don’t take the shot if you’re open,” said 6-foot-8 junior forward Jonathan Cox, who fired up five three-point attempts (making three) en route to a game-high 20 points in the championship game. Several of Cox’s three pointers were of the 25- to 28-foot variety, and ... gasp and swoon ... they were honest-to-goodness good shots.

When this game started out, Illinois State was right there with the Bulldogs. It was 18-17 Drake with 7:35 left in the first half, before the Bulldogs got hot and went on a 22-2 run to close out the half, including seven jumpers that came from every spot on the floor. By the end of the half, Drake had hit on 53.3 percent of its field goals (16 of 30) and in the second half, they were even more accurate with a 58.3 percent clip (14-24).

“They’re the best shooting team I’ve seen in something like 20 years,” Illinois State coach Tim Jankovich said. “They have more deep shooting weapons than anyone I’ve ever seen, and unless they have a poor shooting night ... and they’re not going to do that. They’re going to be a very tough out in the NCAAs, and there’s going to be some people that have not watched them that may not quite understand what they’re going to get into if they face them.”

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What they are is a European basketball team or the Phoenix Suns. They have a flock of shooters who big or small, tall or short, can shoot from every spot on the floor and handle the ball well enough to find the open man. Whoever draws the Bulldogs in the NCAAs would be very wise to watch Sunday’s game tape and devour the box score to understand what they’re getting into. On an afternoon when they made 30 of 54 baskets, they also had 18 assists as a team. Those 18 assists were spread out over seven players, and the 10 three-pointers were divvied up among six players.

“They have four guys that can really, really shot from crazy long range and a great point guard who is not a shooter, but doesn’t need to be because they put the ball in his hands and ask him to make plays,” Jankovich said. “I love the make-up of their team. Shooting, great shooting, always makes for really pretty basketball, and it’s always really fun when you have that.”

And it’s all triggered by the most unlikely star of this entire college basketball season, senior point guard Adam Emmenecker, a 6-foot-1 former walk-on with a remarkable against-all-odds story. He was a walk-on who spent the first three seasons at Drake starting only two games. He entered his senior year with a career 0.9 scoring average and 64 total assists in 58 games.

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“He’s old school,” said Pete Gillen, the long-time college coach and current radio analyst for Westwood One. “He’s like that old guy in the YMCA that everyone wants to play with because we know we’re all going to get plenty of shots. He’s that guy who distributes the ball to everybody all day long.”

In Drake's semifinal victory over Creighton, Emmenecker finished with a career high in points (20) and assists (11), and it was all done well below the rim with the pass-first style of the pros he patterned his game after. He might never turn into a pro of the stature of Jason Kidd, John Stockton or Steve Nash, but he is a point guard on that basketball evolutionary tree. Emmenecker finds value distributing the ball first to everyone else, and scoring only because it’s the smartest and most necessary thing to do.

Even when he did drop in 20 points, his best highlights came as a result of his equal distribution of the ball. Three other teammates got at least 10 shots, and five Bulldogs scored in double figures. Many of those shots came as he swept into the lane like a hockey player cruising in front of the net with the puck dancing off his stick.

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