11-seed Drake stuns Mizzou, as coach ‘expected’

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  40″height=”40″/ > Eli LedermanMar 20, 2025, 11:04 PM ET Close Eli Lederman covers college football and recruiting for ESPN.com. He signed up with ESPN in 2024 after covering the University of Oklahoma for Sellout Crowd and the Tulsa World.WICHITA, Kan.– First-year Drake coach Ben McCollum could not have quite seen all of this coming 365 days earlier. In fact, at this time last year, McCollum was still numerous weeks away from leaving Division II Northwest Missouri State for the Bulldogs’top job.But nights such as Thursday were most certainly part of the vision when McCollum landed at Drake last April 1. It’s why nothing about the 11th-seeded Bulldogs ’67-57 first-round NCAA tournament triumph over sixth-seeded Missouri at Intrust Bank Arena came as a surprise, a minimum of not to the 43-year-old McCollum.”I ‘d be lying if I stated I didn’t expect this, “McCollum stated late Thursday night after Drake protected its very first NCAA competition win because 2021.” … I expected precisely this. I expected [my players] to compete. I brought winners with me. That’s what I brought. I guess my superpower is finding winners, discovering difficult kids and thinking in them. So I type of anticipated this. I ‘d be lying if I stated I didn’t.”I know I attempt to be simple in other words. However guy, I think in these kids.

  “Editor’s Picks 1 Associated The Bulldogs, who entered the game as a 5 1/2-point underdog at ESPN BET, were physically dominant on

the boards

. Junior guard Bennett Stirtz, one of four Drake starters who played Department II basketball last season, gathered 21 points. The program can reach the Sweet 16 for the first time because 1971 with a second-round win against No. 3 seed Texas Tech on Saturday.It’s the latest chapter in McCollum’s storybook debut season at Drake, a small school from Des Moines, Iowa, with a registration of 4,774. He assembled a 395-91 record and won four nationwide titles in 15 seasons at Northwest Missouri State from 2009 to 2024. He reached Drake last spring and put together a 10-man rotation made up

mostly of former Department II recruits, junior college transfers and a pair of holdovers who played under previous Drake coach Darian DeVries, who accepted Indiana’s head coaching job earlier this week after one season at West Virginia.That unlikely group embraced McCollum’s client, slow-tempo design and then stormed to a 30-3 record, making an NCAA tournament berth as champ of the Missouri Valley Conference. Tavion Banks had 15 points and 9 rebounds as Drake upset Missouri in the NCAA tournament. With a win Saturday, the Bulldogs can reach their firstSugary food 16 since 1971. AP Photo/Charlie Riedel On Thursday, McCollum’s undersized Bulldogs held Missouri to its least expensive first-half point total of the season, outscored the Tigers 38-22 in the paint, and held off a late charge to land their 31st win of the season through an efficiency McCollum said he believed encapsulated the program improvement he has attained in less than a year.”For our guys, I believe we simply battled,” McCollum stated.” That’s type of what we have to do is just continue to combat and continue to grind and continue to compete

. We’ve got guys that wish to do that, that desire it hard. They had the ability to do it.” In a clash of designs, Drake pulled the high-scoring, up-tempo Tigers into a slugfest en route to a 30-23 halftime benefit. That lead grew as large as 15 points after halftime before Missouri

cut the gap to 52-51 with 4:28 left on the back of a 12-2 scoring run.A 15-6 response from the Bulldogs over the final 4:02 sufficed to close out the success. Tavion Banks, a junior college transfer who made MVC Sixth Guy of the Year honors and charged Drake’s rebounding efficiency Thursday, scored 7 of his 15 points over that stretch.McCollum credited the grace of Stirtz, who kicked off the closing kept up a step-back jumper, for assisting steward the Bulldogs through the final minutes.”He’s been in a lot of big games,”McCollum stated. “Undoubtedly, just from a personality point of view, that’s most likely why we match so well. I’m a little more extreme, we’ll utilize. Some people would call it insane. He’s really calm. We just kind of healthy each other when he’s on the flooring. He can examine precisely what I’m stating so we can get it corrected.”