Missouri Valley Conference MVP Bennett Stirtz turned a stagnant Drake offense into an efficient one during Saturday's conference tournament semifinal game. The Bulldogs defeated Belmont 57-50 as Stirtz scored 16, second half points, finishing with 24.
Head coach Ben McCollum said his team was stagnant on the offensive end, so he told his best player, to go play one-on-one. And it worked. Stirtz scored the first eight points of the second half and Drake virtually erased Belmont’s nine-point half time lead.
Drake’s defense wasn’t bad in the first half, allowing just 30 points, but the Bulldogs put on a defensive master class during the game’s second session. McCollums Bulldogs played like ‘hungry dogs after a bone’. The Bruins scored just twenty second half points and converted just .296 of their second stanza shots.
Head coach Casey Alexander admitted that his team’s sixteen turnovers were the biggest reason for the Bruins’ loss.
What Does the Victory Mean?
With the win, the Bulldogs earned a Drake program record twenty-ninth victory, and a spot in Sunday’s Missouri Valley Conference Tournament championship game. The question on every Valley fan’s mind is ‘will the Bulldogs earn an at-large bid, if they lose on Sunday?’
Prior to Saturday’s game the Bulldogs sit at 59 in the national evaluation tool and 62 at Kenpom.com. Those numbers don’t scream ‘NCAA at-large berth’, but many bracketologists disagree.
Rocco Miller of Bracketeer.org says the newer metric of ‘wins above bubble’ helps the Dogs’ chances. In his latest bracket (prior to Saturday’s win), he lists Drake as one of the teams that is ‘In, Not By Much’ category. CBS’ Matt Norlander points out that no 29-win team has ever been kept out of ‘The Big Dance’.
Drake advances to the MVC title game.
— Matt Norlander (@MattNorlander) March 8, 2025
Fact: No team with 29+ wins on Selection Sunday has ever been left out of NCAA Tournament as an at-large.
We'll see if Drake takes care of business tomorrow and snatches the auto bid.
The Arch Madness final features a game between the MVC’s top two teams. Second place Bradley (26-7) is currently 78 in the NET, meaning even a Sunday loss would be a ‘Quadrant Two’ loss and wouldn’t fall into the dreaded ‘bad loss’ category.
While the famed ‘eye-test’ doesn’t fancy the low-scoring Bulldogs, their story-line of a bunch of former Division 2 players with a former Division 2 coach succeeding at such a high level, does shout for an invitation to the dance.
Drake second only to Auburn in scoring defense. That should count for something.
Stirtz is one of the most compelling individual stories in all of college basketball. If the selection committee is watching, Drake, who defeated Vanderbilt, Kansas State and Miami should receive an at-large bid.
Sunday's game is scheduled for 1:00 pm (Central) on CBS.