Missouri vs Drake Prediction 3/20/25 College Basketball Picks Today

The Drake Bulldogs and the Missouri Tigers meet Thursday in NCAA Tournament first-round college basketball action from Intrust Bank Arena. Here’s a Missouri vs Drake prediction. We will look at this from a betting perspective and determine the best Missouri vs Drake pick.

Drake Bulldogs Betting Preview

Drake has been a highly consistent team all season with just one instance of consecutive losses—and just three losses in total. The Bulldogs fell to UIC and Murray State in succession to kick off the 2025 calendar year, then beat Bradley, Evansville, Illinois State, Indiana State, Valparaiso, Missouri State, Northern Iowa, Southern Illinois, Murray State, Indiana State, and Illinois State before another loss to Bradley. Since then it’s been a string of wins as Drake has dispatched UIC, Northern Iowa, Evansville, Missouri State, Southern Illinois, Belmont, and Bradley on the way to an MVC Tournament title and a 30-3 overall record this year.

In their final conference tournament game versus Bradley on March 9, the Bulldogs went into the locker room with a 31-27 edge. Drake turned it up in the second half on a 32-21 run and took the eventual victory 32-21 in the end. Bennett Stirtz led the team with 24 points, four rebounds and four assists alongside a pair of blocks. The only other player on the team to finish in double-figures was Tavion Banks, who came off the bench to provide 13 points, nine rebounds, two assists, one steal, and one block in 33 minutes of work. Cam Manyawu got close to double-digits though, notching nine points with four rebounds in the victory.

Missouri Tigers Betting Preview

Over on the Missouri side, they were looking pretty good for most of the year, but since February hit the team has seen some significant struggles in the win column. The Tigers went 15-4 over their first 19 games with losses to only Memphis, Illinois, Auburn, and Texas. A 5-2 run came next with wins over Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Oklahoma, Georgia, and Alabama (alongside losses to Tennessee and Texas A&M), then a 1-4 run to finish off the season. Those losses were versus Arkansas, Vanderbilt, Oklahoma, and Kentucky. Missouri beat Mississippi State in the conference tourney before a loss to Florida. That gives the Tigers a 22-11 overall run so far this season.

In the Florida matchup on Friday, the Tigers kicked off the first half on a 50-37 deficit. Missouri didn’t get any closer on a 45-44 second half and took the loss at the end 95-81. Topping the scorers in the losing effort was Tamar Bates with his 16 points and three rebounds. Both Anthony Robinson (three assists; two steals) and Tony Perkins (four rebounds; three assists) each posted 13 points, while Caleb Grill led the bench scoring 11 points with two assists.

Missouri vs Drake Prediction

I’m going to take a stab at Drake here. The Bulldogs are looking pretty good these days, even though they’re not putting up huge points totals on offense. Drake shot a solid 45.7 percent from the field with a 32-19 rebounding advantage and just nine turnovers in their MVC Tournament final versus Bradley. That said, the Bulldogs weren’t great from the line (15-of-23 for 65.2 percent) and had a tepid 11 team assists. Drake has been below 66 points in four of the last six games, but the good news is that they’ve won seven straight outings.

As for Missouri, they were blitzed by a great Florida team in their last game, coughing up a whopping 61.8 percent shooting from the field in the defeat. The Tigers’ lone saving grace was their 22 points off 16 Gators turnovers, but even that wasn’t enough to prevent a double-digit loss. Missouri is normally a good offense but they’ve been giving up a truckload of points on the other side lately. This will be a very interesting matchup, and I like Drake to power one out.