Boxscore

EVANSVILLE, Ind. -- There's a big difference between Drake's record and Evansville's record, but there was only a three-point difference here Sunday afternoon.  Drake hung on to win its 11th straight game, 71-68 over the Purple Aces.

Drake is 12-1 overall and tied for first place in the Missouri Valley Conference at 3-0.  The Aces are 5-8 and 0-3 in the MVC heading into Wednesday's game at Creighton.

Drake finally broke away late in the second half to take a 68-57 lead with two minutes to go, but three-pointers by Jason Holsinger and Jay Couisnard, and a layup from Victor Gomez, cut Drake's lead to 68-65 with 52 seconds remaining.  The winning bucket came with 23 seconds remaining when Jonathan Cox buried his third three-pointer of the game to make it 71-65, and Cox came up with his fifth blocked shot a few seconds later to assure the Bulldogs' win.

Cox totaled 19 points, nine rebounds and five blocks, and Adam Emmenecker added 10 points and 10 assists for Drake.  Holsinger was Evansville's scoring leader with 20 points and freshman forward Clint Hopf scored a career-high 12 points and added a career-high seven rebounds.  Gomez also added 11 points and eight rebounds.  The Bulldogs hit 53 percent from the floor (29-for-55) for one of the highest shooting percentages of the season against the Aces.

"Our guys played very hard, and I'm proud of that," said Evansville first-year coach Marty Simmons.  "Drake is a very difficult team to defend, but we just have to do a better job defensively despite that fact.  We hit some big shots and gave ourselves a chance to win the game, but Drake hit even more big shots when they really needed them."

Drake is now tied for first place in the MVC at 3-0 with Illinois State and Indiana State.  All three of those teams finished among the bottom four in the league last season.