11-seed Drake holds off Mizzou rally for upset

WICHITA, Kan. -- First-year Drake coach Ben McCollum couldn't have quite seen all of this coming 365 days ago. In fact, at this time last year, McCollum was still several 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 on April 1. It's why nothing about the 11th-seeded Bulldogs' 67-57 first-round NCAA tournament victory over sixth-seeded Missouri at Intrust Bank Arena came as a surprise, at least not to the 43-year-old McCollum.

"I'd be lying if I said I didn't expect this," McCollum said late Thursday night after Drake secured its first NCAA tournament win since 2021. "... I expected exactly this. I expected [my players] to compete. I brought winners with me. That's what I brought. I guess my superpower is finding winners, finding tough kids and believing in them. So I kind of expected this. I'd be lying if I said I didn't.

"I know I try to be humble in other words. But man, I believe in these kids."

The Bulldogs, who entered the game as a 5½-point underdog at ESPN BET, were physically dominant on the boards. Junior guard Bennett Stirtz, one of four Drake starters who played Division II basketball last season, poured in 21 points. The program can reach the Sweet 16 for the first time since 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 an enrollment of 4,774.

He compiled a 395-91 record and won four national titles in 15 seasons at Northwest Missouri State from 2009 to 2024. He arrived at Drake last spring and assembled a 10-man rotation made up primarily of former Division II recruits, junior college transfers and a pair of holdovers who played under former coach Darian DeVries, who accepted Indiana's head coaching job earlier this week after one season at West Virginia.

That unlikely group adopted McCollum's patient, slow-tempo style and then stormed to a 30-3 record, earning an NCAA tournament berth as champion of the Missouri Valley Conference.

On Thursday, McCollum's undersized Bulldogs held Missouri to its lowest 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 a performance McCollum said he believed encapsulated the program transformation he has achieved in less than a year.

"For our guys, I think we just fought," McCollum said. "That's kind of what we have to do is just continue to fight and continue to grind and continue to compete. We've got guys that want to do that, that want it hard. They were able to do it."

In a clash of styles, Drake pulled the high-scoring, up-tempo Tigers into a slugfest en route to a 30-23 halftime advantage. 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 was enough to close out the victory. Tavion Banks, a junior college transfer who earned MVC Sixth Man of the Year honors and charged Drake's rebounding performance Thursday, scored seven of his 15 points over that stretch.

McCollum credited the poise of Stirtz, who kicked off the closing run with a step-back jumper, for helping steward the Bulldogs through the final minutes.

"He's been in a lot of big games," McCollum said. "Obviously, just from a personality perspective, that's probably why we match so well. I'm a little more intense, we'll use. Some people would call it crazy. He's very calm. We just kind of fit each other when he's on the floor. He can evaluate exactly what I'm saying so we can get it corrected."