{"id":8921,"date":"2025-11-07T01:24:23","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T01:24:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/?p=8921"},"modified":"2025-11-07T01:24:23","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T01:24:23","slug":"mens-basketball-preview-robert-morris-simpson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/?p=8921","title":{"rendered":"Men&#8217;s Basketball Preview: Robert Morris &amp; Simpson"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<aside class=\"sidearm-story-template-links\" aria-label=\"Story Links\">&#013;<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"hide\">Story Links<\/h3>\n<p>&#013;<br \/>\n                        &#013;<br \/>\n    &#013;<br \/>\n&#013;<br \/>\n                    <\/aside>\n<p>                     <strong>The Basics<\/strong><br \/>\nThe Drake men&#8217;s basketball team is back at home for its next pair of games with the 2025-26 season officially underway. The Bulldogs will host 2025 NCAA Tournament participant Robert Morris in the home opener on Thursday, Nov. 6 followed by a matchup with Division III Simpson College (IA) on Monday, Nov. 10.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n<strong>Bulldogs by the Numbers<\/strong><br \/>\nDrake won its season opener this past Monday as it defeated Northern Arizona, 77-71, from the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls, South Dakota as part of the Field of 68&#8217;s Opening Day Marathon. The Bulldogs rallied from an 11-point second half deficit to earn Eric Henderson&#8217;s first win as head coach. Henderson became the 19th coach in school history to win in his Drake coaching debut. Drake has won nine consecutive season openers and is now 80-40 all-time in season opening games.Drake has defended its home court against non-conference foes over the years and has built up a streak of 49 consecutive victories at home against teams not in the Missouri Valley. The Bulldogs host a total of seven non-conference games in the 2025-26 season and will look to keep the streak alive for another season.<br \/>&#013;<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>&#013;<br \/>\n<strong>Drake Leaders<\/strong><br \/>&#013;<br \/>\n<dfn><a href=\"https:\/\/godrakebulldogs.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/jalen-quinn\/10401\" rel=\"smarttag\" rev=\"10401\">Jalen Quinn<\/a><\/dfn> l 20.0 ppg, 4.0 rpg, 2.0 apg<br \/>&#013;<br \/>\n<dfn><a href=\"https:\/\/godrakebulldogs.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/jaehshon-thomas\/10406\" rel=\"smarttag\" rev=\"10406\">Jaehshon Thomas<\/a><\/dfn> l 15.0 ppg, 2.0 rpg, 2.0 apg<br \/>&#013;<br \/>\n<dfn><a href=\"https:\/\/godrakebulldogs.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/wilguens-jr-exacte\/10402\" rel=\"smarttag\" rev=\"10402\">Wilguens Jr. Exacte<\/a><\/dfn> l 14.0 ppg, 12.0 rpg, 4.0 apg<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scouting Robert Morris<\/strong><br \/>&#013;<br \/>\nThe Colonials are the defending Horizon League champions and come to Des Moines with a reloaded roster featuring three returners and 12 newcomers. RMU was selected to finish fourth in the Horizon League this season. Robert Morris began its season on Tuesday night and suffered a loss to Iowa from Iowa City, 101-69.<\/p>\n<p>The Colonials are led by head coach Andy Toole who is in his 16th season at the helm of the program. Toole owns a career coaching record of 252-242 and has spent his entire career with Robert Morris.<\/p>\n<p>Thursday marks the first-ever meeting between the Bulldogs and the Colonials.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Robert Morris Leaders<\/strong><br \/>&#013;<br \/>\nNikolaos Chitikoudis l 14.0 ppg, 9.0 rpg, .636 FG%<br \/>&#013;<br \/>\nRyan Prather Jr. l 12.0 ppg, 3.0 rpg, 3.0 apg<br \/>&#013;<br \/>\nDeSean Goode l 11.0 ppg, 3.0 rpg, .667 FG%<br \/>&#013;<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>&#013;<br \/>\n<strong>Scouting Simpson<\/strong><br \/>&#013;<br \/>\nSimpson makes the short trip up from Indianola for what will count as an exhibition game for the Storm. Simpson is set to begin its season on Friday, Nov. 7 in Jacksonville, Illinois with a matchup against Benedictine. The Storm were picked eighth in American Rivers Conference Coaches preseason poll.<\/p>\n<p>Kyle Jones is in his second season leading the Simpson men&#8217;s basketball program. Jones went 5-20 overall and 2-14 in league play in his first season in Indianola.<\/p>\n<p>Drake has the lead in the all-time series against the Storm, 28-13. Monday marks the first meeting between Drake and Simpson since the 2019-20 season, which the Bulldogs won 98-53 from the Knapp Center. Drake has won six consecutive meetings against Simpson with the last loss taken by the Bulldogs coming all the way back in 1946. The series with the Storm dates back over 100 years with the first-ever meeting taking place in 1907. Simpson won that game with a final score of 18-14.<br \/>&#013;<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>&#013;<br \/>\n<strong>Simpson Returners<\/strong><br \/>&#013;<br \/>\nLevi Gurwell l 11.7 ppg, 2.0 rpg, .419 FG%<br \/>&#013;<br \/>\nBo Huston\u00a0l\u00a011.1 ppg, .494 FG%, .408 3pt%<br \/>&#013;<br \/>\nCam Henderson l 10.8 ppg, 3.0 rpg, 2.8 apg<\/p>\n<p><strong>Up Next<\/strong><br \/>&#013;<br \/>\nDrake remains at home for a contest with SIUE on Friday, Nov. 14. Tipoff from the Knapp Center is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. CT.<br \/>&#013;<br \/>\n\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/godrakebulldogs.com\/news\/2025\/11\/5\/mens-basketball-preview-robert-morris-simpson.aspx\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#013; Story Links &#013; &#013; &#013; &#013; The Basics The Drake men&#8217;s basketball team is back at home for its next pair of games with the 2025-26 season officially underway. The Bulldogs will host 2025 NCAA Tournament participant Robert Morris in the home opener on Thursday, Nov. 6 followed by a matchup with Division III &#8230; <a title=\"Men&#8217;s Basketball Preview: Robert Morris &amp; Simpson\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/?p=8921\" aria-label=\"Read more about Men&#8217;s Basketball Preview: Robert Morris &amp; Simpson\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8922,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Mens-Basketball-Preview-Robert-Morris-Simpson.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8921"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8923,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8921\/revisions\/8923"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}