ASA top play 10* on: #760 Southern Illinois +2.5 vs Drake, 8 PM ET - Drake off huge home win over Indiana State who is the best team in the MVC this year and should be flat for this road date against So. Illinois. Drake has played three true road games, all versus teams ranked lower than Southern Illinois and lost two of those games, one by 22-points to Belmont. The Bulldogs only true road win was at Valparaiso who is ranked outside top 300 per KenPom. SIU is a top 100 team that ranks in the top 50 in both offensive and defensive eFG%. The Salukis are 79th in offensive efficiency and 120th in DEFF. Southern Illinois is a very good 3-point shooting team at 38.9% (16th in the nation) and also defends the Arc well with 2nd lowest 3PT% against in the country at 26.1%. The Salukis are 9-1 SU at home this year with an average +/- of +16.1PPG and 20-5 SU since the start of last year. Southern is playing with revenge here as they lost to Drake in the conference tournament a year ago. In the regular season meeting on this court a year ago, SIU beat Drake 53-49. We call for another W this time around.