Year graduated
1994
Major accomplishments
Set a state finals record with 13 assists; Mr. Basketball; Received Trester Award for mental attitude.
Bryce Drew, who came back home to Indiana in 2005 as an assistant on his father Homer’s Valparaiso University coaching staff after an outstanding 15-year career, chuckled when he heard the question: Did you ever dunk?
“In high school I dunked once, against Portage,” said Drew. “I had another one, but it was a half one, so I’m not really going to count it. I didn’t have dunks in college or the pros.” The three-point shot was Drew’s forte. “I love the three-point shot,” he exclaimed. “That’s the greatest rule they ever put in basketball. In high school I shot a ton of threes, and also in college. I think when I graduated from college I was sixth all-time on the made list for three-pointers.”
Drew’s most famous three-pointer came in the first game of the 1998 NCAA tournament. It is simply referred to as [The Shot] in Valparaiso, and it gained him instant national notoriety, because ESPN’s Sports Center kept replaying the basket that upset Mississippi, 70-69, as time ran out.
“A lot of people make fun of me by calling it that (cThe Shot’),” said Drew. “They play with it a lot, because they played it a lot on TV. We were down two and we didn’t have any timeouts left. We had four seniors on the floor, so we all knew kinda what to do. We ran our game-ending situation play. And just ran it to perfection.”
Jamie Sykes, a pro baseball player who had a strong arm, threw a long pass from out of bounds to one of Valparaiso’s 6-6 players, Bill Jenkins. He caught the ball in the air and threw it to Drew.
“When I shot, I thought it was going to be a little short,” he said. “I just thank the Lord that it crept over that front rim and went in at the buzzer. All our players were on me after that shot. We all were pretty excited, so we don’t remember too much of what was going on.”
Drew remembers the shot coming from “25, maybe 24” feet out on the floor at Oklahoma City. Does the shot get longer over time? “It does,” he said, laughing. He has a tape of that game at home and can impress his grandkids with it someday.
Valparaiso defeated Florida State, 83-77, in the second round in overtime to advance to the Sweet Sixteen at St. Louis. The Crusaders lost to Rhode Island, 74-68, in the first game. He feels the disappointment from that setback was at least equal to losing to South Bend Clay, 93-88, in overtime in the championship game of the 1994 state tournament. That was the Vikings’ only loss in 29 games.
“Yeah, it was pretty disappointing, because it was the same type of situation,” said Drew. “We had five seniors on the team, and we feel we didn’t play as well in that game as we did the previous one. We were up 10 in the first half, and ended up losing by six. We felt like we could have won if we had played like we did in the first and second rounds. In the next round we would have played Stanford. We had played Stanford earlier in the year, and almost beat them when we weren’t playing that well. We thought we had a legitimate chance of going to the Final Four.”
Drew says he definitely considers himself a Hoosier even though he was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, when his father was an assistant coach on Dale Brown’s staff at LSU. He moved with the family to Mishawaka, Indiana, when his son was three years old. Homer Drew became the head coach at Bethel College, an NAIA school in Mishawaka, before moving to the Valparaiso job.
“I come from a basketball family,” said Drew. “My mother Janet has seen a ton of games. My older brother Scott went to Butler and played tennis, but he was on dad’s staff at Valparaiso before becoming head basketball coach at Baylor. My sister Dana was an Indiana All-Star in 1990, then went to Toledo and became MAC (Mid-America Conference) player of the year twice.
“Dana is married to Casey Shaw, who was drafted by the Philadelphia 76ers and played one season with them. He’s played overseas the last eight seasons. They have four kids. Dana used to beat me in basketball until I was a sophomore in high school.”
Drew learned the basics of shooting from his father. In the summer, he would tweak his form outdoors. “I looked at pictures of real good shooters, such as Mark Price, Travis Ford, and Steve Kerr,” he said. “I looked at how they held their hands and how they held their heads. I tried to emulate that.”
It worked. Drew calls his high school senior year a “dream season.” He said, “We were 28-0 when we got to the championship game and ranked No. 1 in the state. We had a group of five seniors that had played together for years.” Those five were Drew, Tim Bishop, Mark Burnison, Ryan Erdelac, and David Furlin.
“Furlin actually was a junior, but we kinda considered him a senior because we had played together so long,” Drew continued. “We were friends on and off the floor and we enjoyed playing together. You know Indiana high school basketball. The whole city got behind us, and we had a tremendous run at the state title.”
The Vikings won a classic in the championship game of the Purdue semistate against East Chicago Central. “We were down one, and Tim Bishop hit a shot at the buzzer to give us a one-point victory in four overtimes. Back then there was only one class. I wish they wouldn’t have gone to class basketball. I’ve kinda seen it from both sides. Since I’m coaching at a small college, we’d much rather be in the NCAA tournament, and play against the Dukes and the North Carolinas than to have a smaller tournament with just the smaller Division I schools.”
Drew averaged around 25 points as a senior, but he had just nine points in the first game of the state finals at the Hoosier Dome (now the RCA Dome), which Valparaiso won, 84-69, over Indianapolis Ben Davis.
“That was about my lowest scoring game all year,” said Drew. “I wasn’t really pleased with how I played. I did have 13 assists, and that set the state finals record, so I was doing something good.”
South Bend Clay defeated New Albany, 61-57, to advance to the championship game, which the Colonials won, 93-88, in overtime after it was tied, 78-78, in regulation.
“We were up eight with 58 seconds left” said Drew. “To tell you the truth, they made every shot. All we did was we missed one one-and-one and then we had a turnover. Actually, I was the one who turned it over, but if you watch on tape my whole arm got ripped down and they didn’t call a foul.
“We made all of our free throws, but they just kept making threes. I think they did a stat that over the fourth quarter and overtime they didn’t miss a free throw, and I don’t think they missed a three, and they had no turnovers. It obviously was disappointing. I think we were kinda shocked, because we had led for pretty much the whole game and we were in control. I think we still all felt like we were the better team and should have won the game.”
During Drew’s junior year at Valparaiso U., Bishop, who played in the All-Star series with Drew, was killed in an auto accident while playing professional baseball. “It was very sad,” said Drew. “I think most of our team were pallbearers. He’s buried only about five minutes from my house.”
Houston selected Drew as the 16th pick in the first round of the 1998 NBA draft, because the Rockets had Charles Barkley, and they wanted some three-point shooting to take the pressure off Barkley down low.
“Charles was a great teammate,” said Drew. “I think he kinda respected me because I worked so hard.” Drew played two years with Houston, one year with Chicago, three years with the Hornets, and one year in Europe, split between Italy and Spain.
Of his pro career, Drew said, “I had a great time and I learned a ton. Some years I played more than others. When I was with Houston we had three of the top 50 [players of all time] : Scottie Pippen, Barkley, and Hakeem Olajuwon. I scored over a thousand points, and I hold the Hornets’ record for hitting nine consecutive three-pointers. The good thing was I made the NBA. The average is four years, but I had six, and I felt good about that. I did contribute and had some decent numbers at times.
“My year in Europe was good. I had gotten married, and it was almost like an extended honeymoon for me and my wife, Tara.”
Drew believes he could have played a few more years, but with his marriage and the move of his brother to Baylor, he felt the time was right to try coaching, especially with his father.
“My main goal is I want to help my dad win games,” said Drew, who chose to play college basketball for his father over Notre Dame. “He’s had a great career. I just want to make sure whenever he does decide to retire he goes out a winner.” That’s the Drew credo.