Eighty four years, 171 meetings, and a series that has spent most of its life being decided in the last minute.
On December 19, 1942, inside the Peoria Armory, Drake beat Bradley by a single point, 31 to 30. World War II was on. Bradley was not yet a member of the Missouri Valley Conference. Nobody in that gym had any reason to think they had just started something that would still be running eighty four years later.
They had. Through the most recent meeting on January 31, 2026, the Braves and Bulldogs have played 171 times, the longest running rivalry in Missouri Valley Conference history. That is a meaningful thing to be the oldest of. The MVC was founded at the Midland Hotel in Kansas City on January 12, 1907 and is the second oldest Division I athletic conference in the country. Drake was in almost from the start, joining two months after that founding meeting. Bradley did not arrive until 1948, six years after the two schools had already started playing each other. Bradley leads the series 96 wins to 75.
The shape of the series
Since 1942 the series has run nearly without pause, and usually twice a season. The only real interruptions came in 1943 and 1944, when the war shut things down, and again from 1946 through 1948, the final three years before Bradley joined the Valley.
Both programs kept the series relevant by being good at the same time, repeatedly. The two schools have combined for 16 regular season conference titles, and both rank among the top three in league titles among active MVC members according to the conference media guide. When the Valley expanded in 2022 with the additions of Belmont, Murray State and UIC, the two rivals simply kept going. Since that season, Bradley has piled up 94 wins and Drake 86, more than any other program in the conference over that stretch.
The margins tell the real story
Here is the number that explains why this game gets circled on both calendars. Entering 2026, 53 Bradley and Drake meetings since 1942 had been decided by five points or fewer, with Bradley holding a razor thin edge of 27 wins to 26.
Fifty three games. Roughly a third of the entire series has come down to the final possession or two.
The 2008 season is the whole rivalry in miniature. On January 16 in Peoria, Drake won 69 to 68. On February 19 in Des Moines, Bradley won 72 to 71. Two games, two single point results, the home team losing both. Those remain each program’s smallest margin of victory in the series, a genuinely absurd piece of symmetry.
Then, because this rivalry refuses to be one thing, there are the games that were not close at all. The largest margin either side has managed belongs to Bradley: 93 to 53 at Robertson Fieldhouse on January 11, 1954, a 40 point night. Drake’s best is the loudest scoreboard in series history, a 113 to 78 win in Des Moines on February 11, 1971.
Streaks have swung just as hard. Bradley won 12 straight from December 1993 through February 1998, the longest run by either team. Drake countered with five in a row from March 2023 to January 2025, its own series best.
February 16, 2025: the one to hand a newcomer
If you want a single game to show somebody who has never watched this rivalry, it is this one.
Drake came in at 23 and 3, 13 and 3 in the Valley, sitting in first place on an 11 game winning streak, hosting the 168th meeting in front of a sellout crowd of 6,424, the largest of the season at the Knapp Center and a number that matches the building’s listed capacity exactly. Bradley was 21 and 6, 12 and 4, a game back in the standings, and had lost 64 to 57 in Peoria five weeks earlier.
The Bulldogs jumped out to a 22 to 13 lead, with Mitch Mascari burying three long threes during the burst. Then Bradley, which had opened 0 for 3 with three turnovers, reeled off 16 unanswered points, making six of seven shots while Drake went nearly five minutes without scoring and committed four turnovers. The Bulldogs closed the half on a seven point run to trail just 31 to 30 at the break.
The second half produced 10 lead changes and nine ties. Drake led 45 to 40 with under 11 minutes remaining, Bradley answered with six straight, and the Bulldogs never regained a two possession edge.
Down the stretch, Darius Hannah decided it. The 6 foot 9 fifth year forward scored Bradley’s final six points: two free throws, a drive into the lane for a point blank basket and a 59 to 58 lead with 1:23 left, and then, after Tavion Banks tied it at 59 with 25 seconds to go, a two handed dunk with 10 seconds on the clock.
Drake got its look. Bennett Stirtz drove and dished to Daniel Abreu inside. The shot bounced off the rim. Bradley 61, Drake 59.
The result snapped Drake’s five game winning streak in the series and handed the Bulldogs their first home loss to Bradley since January 19, 2022. It also ended a run of 21 consecutive February wins for head coach Ben McCollum dating back to his time at Northwest Missouri State.
“It’s just the little, tiny mistakes we continue to make,” McCollum said afterward, the eternal complaint of a coach who lost a rivalry game by two.
The 2026 season: Bradley takes both
Coming into January 2026, Bradley sat at 10 and 6, 3 and 2 in the Valley, on a two game skid. Drake was 8 and 7, 2 and 2, under first year head coach Eric Henderson, who arrived from South Dakota State with a record of 137 and 67.
The matchup pitted the league’s two best ball control teams, with Bradley ranked first in the MVC and sixth nationally in turnover margin and Drake fourth in the league. It also featured the Valley’s top two scorers, Drake’s Jalen Quinn and Bradley’s Jaquan Johnson, who ranked first and second in the conference in points per game.
History said it would come down to the wire. History was wrong twice.
On January 7 at Carver Arena, Bradley won 93 to 66. The Braves had been a fortress at home all year, entering at 7 and 1 and outscoring visitors by an average of 13 points while forcing 17 turnovers a game on that floor. The win also moved Brian Wardle into a tie with Joe Stowell for second on Bradley’s all time wins list at 197.
On January 31 at the Knapp Center, Bradley won again, 87 to 73, leading 41 to 35 at halftime and pulling away after the break.
That completed Bradley’s first regular season sweep of Drake since the 2022 season, when the Braves won 83 to 71 in Des Moines and 68 to 59 in Peoria.
And yet: Drake still holds the recent edge
Here is the humbling footnote for Braves fans. Even after taking both games in 2026, Bradley is 4 and 6 against Drake over the last ten meetings. The sweep narrowed the gap. It did not erase it.
The trophy case says the same thing. Drake won Arch Madness three years running in 2023, 2024 and 2025. Bradley’s most recent tournament titles came in 2019 and 2020, and before that you have to go back to 1988 and 1980.
Bradley’s 2026 ended elsewhere. Seeded second at Arch Madness, the Braves survived Valparaiso 90 to 84 in double overtime before falling 73 to 69 to UNI in the semifinals, and UNI went on to win the tournament, its seventh league title, and the Valley’s automatic NCAA bid. Bradley landed in the NIT as one of a record four MVC teams in that field, then drew Dayton at Carver Arena and lost 80 to 66, trailing by 17 at the break. The Braves finished 21 and 13.
One number from that night is worth keeping. Jaquan Johnson, who led the Valley in steals, did not record a single one against Dayton, the only time all season a Bradley opponent shut the Braves out in that category. He ended the year with 85, one short of the Bradley single season record.
Drake, meanwhile, has been through two head coaches in two years. McCollum ran the program in 2025, his first season in Des Moines after four Division II national titles at Northwest Missouri State. Henderson took over for the 2026 season.
By the numbers
| All time meetings | 171 |
| Series record | Bradley 96, Drake 75 |
| First meeting | Dec. 19, 1942. Drake 31, Bradley 30 |
| Games decided by five points or fewer since 1942 | 53. Bradley leads 27 to 26 |
| Longest winning streak | Bradley, 12 games, 1993 to 1998 |
| Largest margin of victory | Bradley 93, Drake 53, in 1954 |
| Most points by either side | Drake 113, Bradley 78, in 1971 |
| Most recent meeting | Jan. 31, 2026. Bradley 87, Drake 73 |
Common questions about the Bradley and Drake rivalry
How many times have Bradley and Drake played? 171 times through January 31, 2026. Bradley leads the series 96 wins to 75.
Why is this called the Missouri Valley Conference’s oldest rivalry? The two schools first met on December 19, 1942 and have played more often, and for longer, than any other pairing in league history. Drake joined the MVC in 1907. Bradley followed in 1948, six years after the series began.
How close are Bradley and Drake games? Unusually close. Of the meetings played since 1942, 53 have been decided by five points or fewer, with Bradley holding a 27 to 26 edge in those. That is roughly a third of the entire series.
Who won the most recent meeting? Bradley, 87 to 73, at the Knapp Center on January 31, 2026, completing a season sweep.
