ST. LOUIS - Drake (17-14) scored the game's first 12 points and never looked back, downing Bradley (7-25) with a 65-49 victory in the first round of the State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Tournament Thursday night at Scottrade Center.
Rayvonte Rice scored a game-high 18 points, while Ben Simons added 16 for the Bulldogs. Walt Lemon, Jr. led the Braves with 16 points and shared team-high honors by matching his career-high with seven rebounds. Dyricus Simms-Edwards was the game's only other double-digit scorer, finishing with 14 points.
Bradley shot just 34.0 percent (17-50) from the field, including 4-for-20 (.200) from 3-point range. Outscoring the Braves by 40-22 margin in the paint, Drake shot 45.5 percent (25-55) from the field.
Bradley managed to close the game-opening gap to seven points to seven points on three occasions in the first half, but Drake took a 35-25 lead at halftime and the Braves never got closer than eight the rest of the way.
While Bradley's season comes to an end, the seventh-seeded Bulldogs will face No. 2 seed and 24th-ranked Creighton (25-5) in Friday's third quarterfinal at 6:05 p.m. at the Scottrade Center.
