DES MOINES, Iowa – The Drake and Bradley men's basketball teams took their longstanding rivalry down to the final seconds before Bradley eked out a 61-59 victory at the Knapp Center on Sunday afternoon, ending the Bulldogs' 11-game winning streak.

Darius Hannah soared in for a two-handed dunk to break the final tie of the game with 10 seconds left. Drake got a good look at the end, Bennett Stirtz driving into the lane and dishing to Daniel Abreu. But Abreu's close-in shot bounced off the rim and the Braves celebrated a victory that evened the season series after Drake won 64-57 in Peoria on Jan. 8.

Even with the loss, Drake (23-3, 13-3 Missouri Valley Conference) remains in first place in the league standings, a game ahead of Bradley (21-6, 12-4) with four left to play.

A sellout crowd of 6,424, the largest of the season at the Knapp Center, gathered for the 168th game between the two rivals and no one left early.

The Bulldogs seized a nine-point lead in the game's opening minutes, fell behind by eight, then regrouped by halftime before going back and forth with the Braves through a tense second half that had 10 lead changes and nine ties.

Bradley ended up making one more play than Drake and that became the difference. The 59 points matched the fewest Drake has scored in a home game this season as the Bulldogs went the final 3:27 without a basket and missed their final four shots.

Abreu led Drake with 16 points, going 4-for-8 from the field and cashing in on 7-of-9 free throws. Mitch Mascari knocked down four 3-pointers in scoring 14 points and Kael Combs had a solid game off the bench with 11 points, three rebounds and two assists.

Stirtz added eight points, six rebounds, four assists, a steal and a block. He moved from 31st to 28th on Drake's single-season scoring list, running his total to 480, and passed Terry Benka for fifth-place in assists with 159.

Bradley had excellent scoring balance throughout the game, Duke Deen led with 12 points and Zek Montgomery adding 11. Hannah was huge for the Braves down the stretch, scoring their final six points to finish with nine.

Bradley burned Drake for 65 percent shooting (13-for-20) in the first half and shot 53.5 percent for the game. The Braves made 13 of 16 shots during one stretch in the opening half, including eight in a row.

Drake managed just seven field goals in the second half, shot 46 percent for the game and finished 7-for-20 from deep.

The Bulldogs led 56-54 after Abreu gathered in a missed 3-point attempt and scored on the putback with 3:27 remaining. Combs sank two free throws to extend the lead to 58-55 with 2:09 left and then Hannah, an athletic 6-foot-9 fifth-year player, took over.

He made two free throws to get the Braves to within a point. Then, after a Drake miss, he drove into the lane and dropped in a point-blank shot for a 59-58 Bradley lead with 1:23 remaining.

Drake's Tavion Banks made one of two free throws after poking the ball away on defense to produce the final tie at 59 with 25 seconds to go, setting the stage for Hannah's final emphatic basket.

Mascari buried three long 3-pointers in helping Drake build a 22-13 lead with 9:21 left in the opening half. Cam Manyawu got the final four points of that early burst with a bucket inside and a two-handed dunk on a nice bounce pass from Stirtz.

Bradley, which started the game 0-for-3 with three turnovers, was starting to catch fire, however, and reeled off 16 straight points to open a 29-23 lead. Drake went almost 5 minutes without scoring and committed four turnovers while Bradley was making six of seven shots, including four treys.

The Braves' lead grew to 31-23 before Drake scored the final seven points of the half to trail 31-30 at the break.

Drake regained the lead early in the second half and led 45-40 with 10:59 left. Bradley came back with six straight points but never led by more than the final two-point margin. The Bulldogs led by as many as three points three times after that but never regained a two-possession edge.

"It's just the little, tiny mistakes we continue to make," Drake head coach Ben McCollum said. "It's the same mistakes for each individual player. We'll get that corrected, though. It's not like…again, you can reprocess and then you win a game and everybody's happy. Then you lose a game and everybody's mad at the world and everybody's terrible. That's part of it. We just have to figure out what caused that and based off of what I've seen, it was just a lot of little mistakes. Just a lot of tiny mistakes throughout the game that we need to correct."

The Bulldogs remain at home for their next game, hosting UIC at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday. UIC handed Drake its first loss of the season in Chicago back on New Year's Day.
 
TEAM NOTES
—Drake, which had an 11-game winning streak snapped, fell to 23-3 overall.
—The Bulldogs maintained first place in the Missouri Valley Conference with a 13-3 record.
—Drake is 12-2 at home this season, including a 6-2 league road mark.
—The 59 points tied the lowest point total Drake had scored in a home game this season with 59 scored against Murray State Jan. 5
—This snapped a string of 21 straight victories Ben McCollum had won in the month of February dating back to his coaching career at Northwest Missouri State.
—Drake is 2-1 when trailing at halftime this season.
—Drake hit 52.2 percent (12-23) in the first half, marking the 16th game this season the Bulldogs shot 50 percent or better in the first half. 
—There were nine ties and 11 lead changes in the game.
—Drake missed its last four shots of the game, going 3:24 without a basket.
 
INDIVIDUAL NOTES
—Graduate Daniel Abreu led Drake with 16 points, including 11 in the second half.
—Graduate Mitch Mascari added 14 points, including 12 in the first half.
—Mascari made four three-point baskets, moving into a tie for No. 10 on the single-season three-point basket made list at 80 with B.J. Windhorst who also had 80 during the 1994-95 campaign.
—It marked the eighth time this season Mascari has made four or more three-point baskets in a game this season including his second straight game against Bradley
—Sophomore guard Kael Combs came off the bench to score 11 points.
—It was Combs' third double-figure scoring figure of the season, including second straight game.
—Junior guard Bennett Stirtz led Drake with a game-high six rebounds and a game-high four assists.
—Stirtz has 159 assists this season, moving into No. 4 on Drake's single-season assists list, passing Terry Benka who had 156 in 1976-77.
 
THE SERIES
—Drake had a five-game winning streak against Bradley snapped.
—Drake owns a 44-31 record against Bradley in Des Moines, while suffering its first home defeat to the Braves since Jan. 19, 2022, when Bradley claimed an 83-71 win.
—Bradley owns a 94-74 lead in the oldest series in the MVC, including a 55-24 mark in Peoria.