Bryce Drew continuing the family legacy at Vanderbilt
By Matt Green
In his first season as Vanderbilt basketball head coach, Bryce Drew is trying to get the Commodores back in the NCAA Tournament.
After Vanderbilt’s 73-71 victory over Florida on Saturday, Drew’s team is making a serious case for a tournament bid.
The Commodores are now 17-14, including 10-8 in the SEC. They closed the regular season winning five of their final six games.
In Joe Lunardi’s latest Bracketology, he lists Vanderbilt as one of the Last Four In. And that was before Saturday’s win over the Gators, their second win against them this season.
In five seasons at Valparaiso, Drew led the Crusaders to four Horizon League regular season titles, and two NCAA Tournament appearances.
But the Drew legacy goes back much further than what Bryce has done. His father and brother have been in the game much longer than him.
Homer Drew
Homer was the head coach at Valparaiso for 22 years from 1989 to 2011. If that math doesn’t add up to you, it’s because it doesn’t. He retired after the 2001-02 season and gave the reigns to his oldest son, Scott.
Scott lasted just one year at Valparaiso before taking the job at Baylor.
So Homer, who took a job as the Special Assistant to the President for University Advancement after he retired, became the head coach at Valpo again after his son moved on.
Homer ended up coaching eight more years at Valpo before retiring 2011 and once again making his son the next head coach at of the Crusaders, but this time it was Bryce.
In 22 years at Valpo, Homer went 370-306 and went to seven NCAA tournaments. But the most famous trip the Crusaders made to the tournament was in 1998.
Valpo captured the imagination of the entire country when the tiny school in Indiana made a run all the way to the Sweet 16.
And most people will remember it by this shot, one of the most famous moments in NCAA tournament history, made by none other than his son, Bryce.
Scott Drew
After one year as the head coach at Valpo, Scott took over a Baylor program that was in absolute turmoil.
In 2003 the program was under NCAA investigation after one player murdered another player. After discovering drug use by players and improper payments from coaches to players, the program was put on probation through 2010 and was eliminated from one year of conference play in 2005-06, one of the most significant punishments in NCAA basketball history.
But despite all that, Scott managed to turn Baylor into one of the top basketball programs in the country.
In 14 seasons with the Bears, Drew has gone 276-178, and led them to the NCAA Tournament six times, including each of the last three. And this year Baylor will likely get a top 2 or 3-seed in the tournament.
In the last 10 years Baylor has been ranked in the top 25 of the AP poll at some point each year. And this year Baylor was ranked no. 1 for the first time in school history.
If Bryce can be anything like his brother or his father, Vanderbilt basketball should have some good years on the horizon.