Getty Drake Bulldogs forward Tremell Murphy.
The Missouri State Bulldogs will host the undefeated Drake Bulldogs for a pair of Missouri Valley Conference games on Tuesday and Wednesday.
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The games will only be televised locally (MVC TV), but anyone in the US can watch both Drake vs Missouri State games live on ESPN+:
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Once signed up for ESPN+, you can watch Drake vs Missouri State live on the ESPN app on your Roku, Roku TV, Amazon Fire TV or Fire Stick, Apple TV, Chromecast, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, iPhone, Android phone, iPad or Android tablet.
You can also watch on your computer via ESPN.com.
Drake vs Missouri State Preview
At 13-0, the Bulldogs are one of five remaining undefeated teams in Division I. A year ago, they went 20-14 overall and just 8-10 in conference play.
Head coach Darian DeVries, a former Creighton Bluejays assistant under current Oregon Ducks head coach Dana Altman, partially credits a change in Drake’s defensive scheme with their breakout campaign.
“We shifted to what we had done when I was with Dana Altman at Creighton,” DeVries said, according to The Gazette. “We went to more of our full-court pressure. Then, becoming more aggressive on the half-court. Trying to create some opportunities with our defense to create some offense. I thought it fit our personnel well.”
Graduate transfer ShanQuan Hemphill, who last played for the Green Bay Phoenix, is scoring a team-high 14.2 points per game on 59.2 percent shooting. The forward’s 5.2 rebounds and 1.4 steals per contest rank second on the team.
“He’s given us such a dynamic impact on both ends of the floor for us this year,” DeVries said, per The Gazette. “He’s doing some fun things up in the air with the basketball a little bit.”
Due to positive COVID-19 tests within the program, the Bulldogs haven’t played since Jan. 4, when they crushed the Southern Illinois Salukis 86-55 at home to improve to 4-0 in MVC play.
“For some of the guys we can do some individual type workouts to keep them in shape and doing some things,” DeVries told ESPN during the break. “For the guys that tested positive, they have to be on a little longer pause because they’re not allowed to do anything for a little while here, and then there’s the return-to-play protocols. We’ll figure it out as we go as guys come back, and it’ll be a fairly significant layoff.”
The Bears are 9-1 overall and 5-1 in MVC action, good for the conference’s third-best winning percentage. When their original two-game slate with the Bulldogs, set for Jan. 17 and 18, was postponed, they scheduled a replacement game with the Division II Missouri S&T Miners for the earlier date.
Missouri State forward Jared Ridder scored a career-high 23 points and grabbed 6 rebounds in 21 minutes of a 94-49 victory.
“They’re ranked 10th in the country on the NET,” Bears head coach Dana Ford said of the Bulldogs, according to the Springfield News-Leader. “When you’re that high, you’re good. It doesn’t matter if you played or didn’t play. We’re going to have to play really well throughout 40 minutes in order to keep up with this.”