By Jacob Mox, Her Hoop Stats
 
In a league that will be full of change for the 2022-23 season, Drake is about as consistent a team as you can find in the Missouri Valley Conference. While five of the league’s 12 teams made coaching changes in the offseason, Drake head coach Allison Pohlman is entering her second season at the helm and her 16th season in the Drake program.
 
Pohlman and the Bulldogs will certainly benefit from that consistency, but the Iowa native is excited about the changes across the league.
 
“The Valley is going to be very fascinating because we have such a different [group] of coaches and players [from last season],” said Pohlman. “So I think there's going to be a lot of navigating and adjusting going on within those first few weeks … people really figuring out different styles.”
 
Drake’s style of play will be no mystery for their opponents, as their consistent, fast-paced and team-centric style has been a calling card spanning the past decade. Drake has posted an assisted shot rate (percent of made baskets that were assisted) north of 70% every season since 2016-17. Iowa is the closest to matching that mark, accomplishing the feat in just three of the past six seasons.
 
That unselfish play translates to their impressive scoring efficiency. Since 2013-14, Drake (8) trails only Iowa and UConn (9) in seasons averaging an effective field-goal percentage of at least 50%. Drake has done that without rostering historically dominant post players and blue chip recruits.
 
What they have done is construct a roster of players who fit the system very well and flourish in that style of play. The latest wave of such players includes veteran bigs Maggie Bair and Grace Berg, both of whom return for this season.
 
Bair, a senior from Glen Ellyn, Ill., has quietly become one of the most efficient scorers in the conference, if not the country. After averaging just 2.0 points and 1.9 rebounds per game as a freshman in 2018-19, she has exploded in production the past two seasons.
 
Bair averaged 11.9 points last season on an incredible 50.3% shooting from the field while adding to her outside game and shooting a solidly above-average 38.6% from deep. She also averaged 6.3 rebounds and 1.4 blocks per game.
 
This is made even more impressive by the fact that she played just 19.4 minutes per game in her junior year, leaving all kinds of room for another large leap if she can work on avoiding foul trouble and staying on the court. On a per-minute basis, Bair was the 26th-most efficient scorer in the country (24.6 points per 40 minutes) last season.
 
One other facet of Bair’s game to keep an eye on is her free-throw percentage, which has been troubling over her first three seasons. Bair’s 58.6% from the line was actually a career-high last season, and for a player who is so adept at scoring at high efficiency, teams may use that to their advantage.
 
“She was the state of Illinois three-point shot [runner-up] her junior year. So she's a phenomenal, phenomenal shooter,” says Pohlman on finding the balance of Bair’s growing outside game with her incredible efficiency inside. “Typically she finds her way to the paint really, really well, because she's just so good at navigating in there, too”
 
Berg, who is a similarly efficient scorer, creates offense through her ability to put the ball on the floor and make her way to the rim and fight through contact. Berg’s tendency to draw contact on those drives, and to convert at a high clip once she is at the line, will be a major help for a team that has seen a dip in free-throw rate (percent of scoring attempts that lead to a shooting foul) after reaching the upper ranks of the statistic when the team was at its best in the late 2010s.
 
Drake also returns last season’s most impactful newcomers in Kate Dinnebier – who is now a sophomore – and Iowa transfer Megan Meyer – who now enters her senior season. Both Dinnebier and Meyer impacted the slight uptick in success at the free-throw line after a down season in 2019-20, something Pohlman attributes to personnel and not an Xs and Os strategy.
 
Dinnebier was maybe the most efficient player in the conference when it came to drawing fouls, getting to the line on an impressive 33.1% of scoring attempts, including an MVC-leading 38.3% of attempts against conference opponents.
 
Dinnebier made an almost immediate impact for the Bulldogs, knocking down a game-winning three in her collegiate debut against eventual Elite 8-bound Creighton. Dinnebier looks like the natural successor to Maddie Peterson, the Drake mainstay facilitator who graduated last season after five straight years of steadily guiding the offense.
 
Dinnebier is in line to have a historic season as a facilitator, with plenty of assists up for grabs after Peterson and Hannah Fuller’s graduation. Since 2009-10, Caitlin Ingle is the only Bulldog to record at least five assists per game, which she did three times. Dinnebier recorded 3.4 assists per game as a freshman.
 
Meyer, who joined the Bulldogs last year after two seasons playing for the Hawkeyes, represents a type of player that Drake has had off and on over the past several seasons, but whose consistent presence will open up the offense: a volume three-point shooter that can score at all levels.
 
Meyer doesn’t need to live up to three-time Jackie Stiles Player of the Year winner Becca Hittner, who played the role of a primary scorer with the ability to single-handedly take over the game. Instead, Meyer brings the most benefit by simply being a scoring threat from multiple spots on the floor.
 
The threat of her three-point shot, which she converts at a 33.2% clip on 6.3 attempts per game, pairs perfectly with her quick first step and scoring efficiency when she gets inside the arc. That does a lot to open up the offense for paint-focused scorers like Bair and Berg in a way that someone off the bench attempting just one or two threes per game can replicate.
 
Another returning player who will help spread the floor is Sarah Beth Gueldner, who enters her fourth season with the Bulldogs and will continue to play a key role as the primary three-point threat off the bench. Gueldner does not go inside the arc often, averaging just 0.7 two-point attempts per game last season. If she can find some success drawing defenders out to her on the perimeter and then setting up teammates off that pressure, she could open up the floor even more.
 
Drake graduated their preeminent “glue” player in guard Hannah Fuller, who was an instant source of energy and was willing to scrap and get on the floor to generate turnovers and draw charges. Pohlman said that junior forward Courtney Becker has really grown into a similar role, describing her as a “sparkplug” player due to her tenacity and competitiveness.
 
Drake also returns sophomore Anna Miller, who scored at an efficient clip in limited minutes while rebounding at an elite rate on both ends of the floor with above-average shot-blocking. Miller’s 13.4 rebounds per 40 minutes and 3.3 blocks per 40 minutes both ranked 49th in the nation.
 
Drake is in for a big challenge early in the season, welcoming Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes on Nov. 13 in just the second game of the Bulldogs’ regular season. But it isn’t a challenge they aren’t accustomed to, as Iowa’s ‘Big Four’ Division I programs all schedule each other each season.
 
Pohlman, an Iowa native, also spoke about the unique love of women’s basketball in the state of Iowa, and what it means that every Division I school in the state still prioritizes those in-state series when the men’s side has scrapped the tradition.
 
“I think it is a glorious opportunity for our state. Because I think women's basketball in the state of Iowa is absolutely phenomenal. And I think no matter what, whether you're a fan of the Bulldogs, the Panthers, the Hawkeyes or the Cyclones, you can get into that game and you're going to watch teams that are very, very well coached.
 
“You're going to watch a lot of Iowa natives, Iowa girls that the people have watched in the state tournament ... I just think it's a really phenomenal tribute to our state. And I'm so happy that the coaches in this state continue to hold it in high regard.”
 
The Bulldogs kick off their regular season on Nov. 7 against Green Bay at home in the Knapp Center and kick off MVC action at Illinois State on Dec. 30.
 
Note: All stats against Division I opponents only.