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Southern Illinois (7-1, 1-1) at Drake (11-0, 2-0) – 6:00 PM EST (ESPNU)
Today (and tomorrow, for that matter) we have a pair of teams with padded records facing off in a Missouri Valley conference tilt – the surprising Salukis of Southern Illinois hit the road to Des Moines to take on the unbeaten Drake Bulldogs. The high point for SIU was a win at Butler back in December – they ended what was a 59-game winning streak against noncon foes for Butler. However, they did follow that up with a surprising split against Evansville to open up conference play. Marcus Domask has led the Salukis with an 18.1 points per game average through 8 games this season.
Drake opened their season with a win at Kansas State and then were largely untested going into conference play with what was a 9-0 nonconference campaign. They opened up Valley play with a pair of wins at Indiana State last week. Their first game was an 18-point blowout, but they did have to come back from a 9-point deficit to win the second leg 73-66. ShanQuanj Hemphill is averaging just over 14 points a game for the Bulldogs.