A late rally by Drake came up short in a 73-69 loss at Creighton in Missouri Valley Conference play. It was Drake’s sixth straight loss but coach Mark Phelps was pleased with the effort. Phelps says he is proud of the team as he thought they played extremely aggressively, especially down the home stretch.
Phelps on his postgame show on KRNT in Des Moines said the Bulldogs never gave up. He says the team’s spirit was better down the home stretch, and he says you want to be aggressive and confident at the end of ball games.
Drake is 0-4 in the Valley and 5-11 overall.
Iowa State fell behind fifth ranked Duke 14-2 to start the game and the Blue Devils went on to an 86-65 win over the Cyclones in Chicago. ISU hurt its own cause with 18 turnovers in the contest.
Iowa State coach Greg McDermott says they had too many turnover early, and he says a lot of them were self inflicted. He says Duke is a goo basketball team, but he doesn’t think they are 20 points better than his team. He says the Cyclones need to do a better job of taking care of the basketball.
McDermott says there are too many passes on the move and he says they have worked on that, but had too many of those passes in this game.
Iowa State is now 10-4 on the season.