What's Up In The Missouri Valley: What's Up In The Missouri Valley 11/28/2024

Missouri Valley Basketball: Valpo, Belmont and Southern Illinois get MTE wins--Busting Brackets
Injuries Are Mounting in the Valley--Valley Hoops Insider

Missouri Valley Women’s MTE Action--Valley Hoops Insider

Men's Basketball Defeats Tulane--belmontbruins.com

Women’s Basketball Begins Play in Fort Myers, Florida, Friday Afternoon Versus Michigan--belmontbruins.com

Bradley Women's Basketball comes back to beat Northern Kentucky--bradleybraves.com

Under the Radar – Thanksgiving Edition!!--Hoops HD

From there we run through the other 22 UTR leagues and look at how Grand Canyon and McNeese have struggled, what an impressive start Drake is off to

NCAA Basketball: Top takeaways from Feast Week’s best events highlight Thanksgiving Rauf Report--Heat Check CBB

Charleston Classic: Yeah, Drake is that good

The Charleston Classic was supposed to be a showcase event for teams like Miami, Nevada and VCU, potentially giving the champion a significant boost in both at-large resume and national notoriety.

One team did earn those spoils — it just happened to be Drake.

The Bulldogs started out with a convincing victory over Miami and then knocked off FAU and Vanderbilt on their way to the title, winning all three games by double digits.

Drake endured plenty of turnover this offseason after Darian DeVries took the head coaching job at West Virginia (taking his son, two-time MVC POY Tucker DeVries, with him).

Ben McCollum quickly put together a roster filled with transfers — many from lower levels, including a handful that followed McCollum from Northwest Missouri State. McCollum turned that program into a Division II powerhouse, but it was unclear how this group would perform at the D-I level. As a result, Drake finished finish in the MVC preseason polling, a mark this team now seems sure to outperform.

One of those NWMSU transfers, Bennett Stirtz, has already become a star. He played every single minute in Charleston and currently leads the Bulldogs in both points and assists (18.3 ppg, 6.3 apg) while leading the country in minutes. Two other NWMSU transfers, Daniel Abreu (15.2 ppg) and Mitch Mascari (14.3 ppg), have proven to be elite contributors as well.

This kind of dominance can help put a mid-major in the at-large conversation come tournament time. The Bulldogs still have one more nonconference game against a power opponent in Kansas State, and then the Missouri Valley race looks to be a dogfight between Drake and Bradley.

After the MVC earned an at-large bid in 2021 and nearly got another last season, Drake looks poised to make its own run in 2025.