Drake Bulldogs vs Murray State Racers Prediction, Odds and Picks for Today, 02/04/25

On Tuesday evening, The Drake Bulldogs travel to face the Murray State Racers in a revenge spot for the conference-leading Bulldogs. These teams met in early January, with the Racers taking the win, 66-59. Since then, Drake has not lost, reeling off 8 straight conference wins. Most of those have been emphatic wins, and the Bulldogs look to be peaking down the stretch. Murray State appeared to be making a surprise run in the Missouri Valley after winning at Drake, but since then, they have crashed back to reality. The Racers have lost 5 of 8 since then, and facing a Drake team looking for revenge is bad news. Drake is a team worthy of the NCAA tournament, and they should win this game comfortably, even on the road. My Drake vs Murray State pick is Drake -5.

The thing that ought to give us pause about this game is that Drake ranks 364^th in tempo. Yes, that is dead last in the entire country. It works for them because they play tremendous defense and are dominant on the glass, and their offense is relatively efficient even if painfully patient. There are teams that might be able to exploit that, but Murray State isn’t a fast team either, thus failing to live up to their Racers moniker. Still, trusting the nation’s slowest team to cover any sort of number is a tough ticket to take. In the first matchup, the Racers won because they won on the glass, and because Murray out-shot Drake substantially (55% to 41%). I do not think either of those things is likely to happen a second time, and unless it does, Murray State will be in trouble. This time of year, my rule is to take the home team underdog in major conferences, but back the road team favorites in the smaller conferences. That’s what I am doing here. Drake is just better.

Drake vs Murray State prediction: Drake -5 (-110) available at time of publishing. Playable at that number.

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