As he enters the twilight of his collegiate basketball career, senior Ore Arogundade has grown in lockstep with the Bulldogs' program over the last four years.

Every preseason workout, practice, heartbreaking loss, exhilarating win, long bus ride into the early morning hours followed by an 8 a.m. class has helped mold Arogundade and his teammates. Those experiences also laid the foundation for this season's quick start to the Missouri Valley Conference season and made those small steps forward all the more rewarding.

Arogundade feels that he and his teammates are finally "reaping the fruits of the labor," after already earning 8 Valley wins following just 13 conference wins in his previous three seasons combined and three changes in the leadership of the program.

"We're  having a lot of fun doing it," Arogundade said. "We've faced a lot of low times and now we're facing some better times. We have to remain humble and come to work every day, but right now it's an exciting time to be a Drake Bulldog."

The journey to this exciting time required an on-court transformation for Arogundade who came to Drake as a confident volume scorer but has evolved into a lockdown defender and team player. 

"I was coming from being the all-time leading scorer at my high school and had gotten a lot of offensive accolades," Arogundade said. "I came in thinking I would do the same here. Over time, I learned that the way you get on the floor as an underclassman is defending. If you can guard, coaches will find some way to get you on the floor."

That defensive commitment got Arogundade on the floor quickly and often. He appeared in 29 games as a freshman and every game since. Eventually, that defense began to fuel his scoring and he has been among the team's top five scorers each of the last three seasons. 

"It starts with defense for me," Arogundade said. "I want to get that going and the offense will come. I feel like I set the tone for our team and everyone feeds off that. I know the offense will come."

The offense has certainly come. In droves. 

The Bulldogs led the league with 77.5 points per game with eight 80-point games this season. However, scoring has never held the Bulldogs back in recent years. Defense and closing out games have been the difference for this year's veteran-laden squad.

"That comes from great preparation from the coaching staff and Niko [Medved] gives us great direction and a great plan to follow," Arogundade said. "We've been in this position before and we know what it takes to win. We know that extra ounce you need to push through in those big moments."

The Bulldogs have come out on the right side of those big moments more often than not in the first half of the season. From the early season upset of Wake Forest to a double-overtime win against Drexel and Valley road wins at SIU, Indiana State and Bradley, this year's Bulldogs have shown the tenacity and resolve to gut out wins. 

But Arogundade and his veteran teammates know the challenges and potential pitfalls that await them in the homestretch of the Valley season.

"The conference action is going to get ramped up in the second half of the conference season and the message that needs to be relayed is you can't get complacent," Arogundade said. "We know where we've been and we have to finish strong. Maybe that was a problem before, but we have to focus on keeping that winning mindset. We expect to win every game and if we keep that mindset, we'll be happy with the results."

In addition to hopefully collecting wins, Arogundade wants to use this last half of his senior season to reflect on everything he has experienced and cherish the experiences on his horizon.

"As an underclassman, you're always like 'I've got next year.' Now, this is it. I have less than 15 regular season games left," Arogundade said. "I'm going to cherish everything, every rep I can get in practice and every minute on the floor because you only get to live college basketball one time. We've been through some ups and downs and I'll never take these moments for granted."

Bulldog fans would be wise to take that same advice as Arogundade and his fellow seniors take the court in the final few of their more than 500 combined games in the Blue & White.