![\"Indiana](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Indiana_State.png\")
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Next Game:<\/p>\n
Indiana State<\/p>\n
1\/4\/2026 | 2 PM<\/p>\n
\n ESPN+
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\n 1350 | 102.1 ESPN Des Moines
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\n Jan. 04 (Sun) \/ 2 PM
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<\/p>\n
\n \u00a0Indiana State
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History <\/a><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n DES MOINES, Iowa\u00a0\u2013 Illinois State’s torrid second-half shooting and Chase Walker’s strong inside presence proved too much for the Drake men’s basketball team.
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\nWalker powered his way to 17 points and the Redbirds shot 79 percent after halftime to beat the Bulldogs 73-56 at the Knapp Center on Monday night in a matchup of the defending Missouri Valley Conference champion against the team favored to win the title this season.
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\nDrake kept it close through a first half that featured seven lead changes and four ties and trailed by just three points early in the second half. But the Redbirds, the preseason pick to win the Valley, broke it open with a 14-3 run and led by as many as 20 in ending Drake’s 10-game winning streak in the series.
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\nOkku Federiko<\/a> led the Bulldogs (7-7, 1-2 MVC) with 11 points and came up with a career-high four steals. Jalen Quinn<\/a> added 10 points for Drake, the defending MVC champion, and Andrew Alia<\/a> scored nine on 3-for-5 shooting from 3-point range.
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\nThe Bulldogs played without Jaehshon Thomas<\/a>, who was ill and did not suit up. Thomas is the Bulldogs’ third-leading scorer and had averaged 17.5 points in the first two conference games.
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\nDrake compiled a season-high 12 steals and had a 26-6 edge in points off turnovers, but that stat made little difference in this one. Illinois State committed a season-high 23 turnovers \u2013 the Redbirds had been averaging only 10 a game \u2013 but offset that with 13 3-pointers and 63.4 percent shooting for the game.
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\nThe Bulldogs, meanwhile, shot a season-low 33.9 percent and went just 7-for-26 on 3-pointers after making only one of 12 shots from deep in the opening half. The 56 points were the fewest Drake has scored in a game this season.
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\nDrake started the game on a promising note, Owen Larson<\/a> feeding Federiko for a layup less than 30 seconds in. The Bulldogs frustrated the Redbirds early with a switching, trapping defense and built a 14-10 lead when Braden Appelhans<\/a> knocked down a three-ball from just left of the key with 11:18 left in the half.
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\nThe Drake lead was 16-14 after Wilguens Jr. Exacte<\/a> drove for a layup, but it vanished when Logan Wolf, who played his first two seasons at Northern Iowa, buried back-to-back triples and TyReek Coleman followed with another trey for a 23-16 Illinois State lead. The Redbirds stayed ahead the rest of the way while the Bulldogs found good shots but just couldn’t get them to drop.
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\nDown just 31-27 at halftime, the Bulldogs pulled to 33-30 on Alia’s long ball with 19:34 left, but they got no closer. Illinois State made nine of its first 10 shots in the second half, including four three-pointers, to open a 56-39 lead.
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\nDrake cut into the deficit with back-to-back triples from Eli Shetlar<\/a> and Alia, but Illinois State answered with six straight points to take the lead back to 17 and the Bulldogs never threatened again in suffering their worst loss in a Valley game since an 87-65 setback at Belmont on Jan. 7, 2024.
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\nWalker, a 6-foot-9, 280-pound junior and the league’s preseason player of the year, bullied the Bulldogs around the basket, making 6-of-7 shots and drawing six fouls. Wolf finished with 14 points on 5-for-6 shooting, including four three-pointers in five attempts. He had been shooting 3-for-20 from deep coming in.
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\nIllinois State beat Drake for the first time since a 57-53 victory in Normal on Feb. 22, 2020.\u00a0 It was the Redbirds’ first win in Des Moines since a 69-55 victory on Jan. 30, 2019.
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\n“I thought maybe the first 10 to 12 minutes were maybe as good as we have played all year,” Drake head coach Eric Henderson said. “Unfortunately, the game is a lot longer than that. That first part of the second half\u2026 [Illinois State] knows where their bread is buttered, and they threw it in to the preseason player of the year and really dictated the game from there.”
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\nDrake will remain at home for its next game, meeting Indiana State on Sunday, Jan. 4 at 2 p.m.
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\nTeam Notes
\n\u2014Drake evened its overall record to 7-7 overall including a 1-2 record in the Missouri Valley Conference.
\n\u2014Drake lost its third straight home game for the first time since falling to Fresno State, Jackson State and South Dakota State in the 2016-17 campaign.
\n\u2014Drake suffered its worst Missouri Valley Conference loss since dropping an 87-65 verdict at Belmont Jan. 7, 2024.
\n\u2014Drake collected a season-high 12 steals, marking the third game this season the Bulldogs have collected 10 or more steals.
\n\u2014Drake scored a season-low 56 points, while shooting a season-low 33.9 percent from the floor (19-56)
\n\u2014There were seven lead changes and four ties in the game.
\n\u2014A three-point basket by Braden Appelhans<\/a> gave Drake its biggest lead of the game at 14-10 with 11:19 left in the first half.
\n\u2014Drake fell to 1-7 when trailing at half, unable to erase a 31-27 deficit.
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\nPlayer Notes
\n\u2014Okku Federiko<\/a> led Drake with 11 points, while collecting a career-high four steals \u2014 all in the first half.
\n\u2014Senior transfer guard Jalen Quinn<\/a> added 10 points with nine coming in the first half.
\n\u2014Redshirt junior guard Andrew Alia<\/a> chipped in with nine points and a team-high four rebounds.
\n\u2014Redshirt junior guard Braden Appelhans<\/a> collected a career-high three steals.
\n\u2014Senior guard Jaehshon Thomas<\/a>, who averages 11.7 points, missed his first game of the season because of illness.
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\nThe Series
\n\u2014Ilinois State, which snapped a 10-game losing streak to Drake, leads the series, 62-42.
\n\u2014This marked the Redbirds’ first win against Drake since claiming a 57-53 win against the Bulldogs, in Normal, Ill., Feb. 22, 2020.
\n\u2014This was Illinois State’s widest winning margin against Drake, since earning an 82-53 victory in Des Moines, Feb. 7, 2007.
\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Next Game: Indiana State 1\/4\/2026 | 2 PM
ESPN+
1350 | 102.1…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-211059","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}