TEDDY COVERS
Illinois State at Drake
Recommendation: Drake
We can expect to continue getting extremely attractive prices to
support Drake as long as Missouri Valley Conference leading scorer
Josh Young remains out with a severely sprained right ankle. First
year head coach Keno Davis has taken over for his father Tom,
much the way Tony Bennett took over for his dad at Washington
State and immediately engineered a 15-win improvement over
what his father had been able to accomplish in the previous season.
The transformation here at Drake has been eerily similar, with the
building blocks put in place by the dad reaping tremendous dividends
for the son. And there?s still plenty of value left with a team
that was projected as a bottom feeder in the Missouri Valley Conference,
but has gotten off to a 14-1 SU, 10-1 ATS start to the campaign.
Drake is outscoring foes by more than 20 points per game at
home, enjoying tremendous crowd support in a conference loaded
with strong home court edges. And there?s tons of depth on this
squad, allowing us to continue supporting them despite Young?s
injury. Leonard Houston and Jonathan Cox are both hitting better
than 45% for the season from long range, and forward Klayton
Korver is a deadeye dick from downtown as well. Combine that with
a 75% free throw shooting percentage at home and a defense that
is forcing turnovers galore while holding opponents to 40% shooting
from the field, and you can understand why the fundamentals
are in place for Drake to continue their stellar early season run.
THIS GAME IS ON SATURDAY