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Drake University Athletics

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Composite Calendar
Roman Penn Florida
59
Winner Drake DU 5-2
56
Northeastern NU 3-4
Winner
Drake DU
5-2
59
Final
56
Northeastern NU
3-4
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 F
Drake DU 30 29 59
Northeastern NU 33 23 56

Game Recap: Men's Basketball | | Drake Athletic Communications

Defense Leads Men’s Basketball To A 59-56 Win

Anthony Murphy posts a career-high 17 points

ESTERO, Fla. - Forty minutes of defense helped the Drake University men's basketball team overcome a slow offensive morning to defeat Northeastern, 59-56, Tuesday morning at the Gulf Coast Showcase.

Anthony Murphy led Drake's offense with a career-high 17 points on 6-of-11 shooting with three three-pointers while Roman Penn added 15 points and was 6-of-7 on critical free throws. However, as a team, Drake shot 32.2 percent and was 6-of-25 from the three-point arc.

"We just had a hard time getting into a flow offensively," said Drake head coach Darian DeVries. "The good thing was our defense never let down in what was a grind-it-out game."

Drake's (5-2) defense held Northeastern's (3-4) Jordan Roland to just 13 points. Roland came into the contest as one of the nation's top scorers at more than 26 points per game. The Bulldogs also forced 19 turnovers, scoring 20 of their points off Northeastern errors. Drake has now held five opponents to fewer than 60 points this season.

"We're going to have a lot of games in our league that are possession-by-possession games like this," DeVries said. "We're going to need guys who step up on both ends of the floor and make plays. I thought we really had that today."

A day after shooting 63 percent from the free-throw line, the Bulldogs converted on 88 percent of their attempts in Tuesday's win and made 6-of-7 attempts in the final 145 seconds to seal the win. The team also committed just nine turnovers.

"Today was much better today in the turnover department," DeVries said. "And our free throws were ultimately the reason we won the game."

Northeastern extended a halftime lead with a 6-0 spurt early in the second half to take a two-possession lead. The lead swapped hands continually with neither team building more than a one-possession lead during the final 17 minutes of the game.

A Penn three-pointer with 3:36 left gave the Bulldogs a lead that the Bulldogs maintained until the final horn. A minute after that three-pointer, D.J. Wilkins connected on two free throws for the final points of an 11-point afternoon. Following a Northeastern basket to trim the margin to one, 55-54, Drake forced a turnover and two misses on NU's next three trips down the floor to hold off the Huskies. 

Drake's defense set the tone early with four straight stops to start the game that the offense turned into an 8-0 lead. NU later used a 7-0 run to take a lead midway through the half and finished the period on a 6-0 run to lead 33-30 at halftime to set up the Bulldogs' come-from-behind victory.

Drake closes competition at the Gulf Coast Showcase Wednesday, Nov. 27, at 12:30 p.m. CST in the fifth-place game. The Bulldogs will face either Weber State or Murray State. 
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