Daishon Knight scored 20 points, his third straight game of 20 or more, and Reggie Lynch added 13 with nine rebounds as Illinois State defeated Drake 64-56 on Tuesday night.
The Redbirds (12-7, 4-3 Missouri Valley Conference) battled through a tight first half to lead 29-27 at the break - grabbing the lead for good on a Bobby Hunter 3-pointer with 2:31 left in the half. Knight added a three-point play 48 seconds before the half.
Drake's Gary Ricks Jr. and C.J. Rivers hit 3-pointers to cut the gap to 36-35 early in the second half, but Illinois State never trailed after halftime and soon had the lead up to seven points.
Rivers and Ricks scored 10 points each to lead Drake (4-15, 1-6).
Lynch blocked three shots to tie Illinois State's sophomore blocks record with 48, matching Joe Galvin's 1977-78 mark. Hunter and Tony Wills scored eight each.
>>Wisconsin Commits Single Turnover In Route of Iowa
Sam Dekker had 17 points, Nigel Hayes scored 16 and No. 6 Wisconsin was crisp in an 82-50 win over No. 25 Iowa on Tuesday.
Frank Kaminsky and Bronson Koenig added 13 points each for the Badgers (17-2, 5-1 Big Ten) and Kaminsky pulled down a game-high 11 rebounds.
Wisconsin picked up its eighth consecutive Big Ten home win and tied No. 13 Maryland for first place in the conference.
The Badgers committed just one turnover.
Jarrod Uthoff scored 12 points to lead the Hawkeyes (13-6, 4-2), who scored just 17 points in the first half and had a two-game winning streak snapped.
Wisconsin is 10-1 in its last 11 games overall, the only loss coming Jan. 11 at Rutgers when it played without Kaminsky because of a concussion and finished the game without point guard Traevon Jackson, who suffered a fractured foot in the second half.
NCAA Top-25 Men's Basketball ("USA Today" Rankings)
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#1 Kentucky Wildcats 65, Vanderbilt Commodores 57
#12 Iowa State Cyclones 77, Kansas State Wildcats 71
Davidson Wildcats 77, #22 Dayton Flyers 60
>>Illinois Hosts Purdue Tonight
(Champaign, IL) -- Illinois welcomes Purdue to the State Farm Center tonight. The Fighting Illini lost to Indiana on Sunday and have alternated wins and losses in their last five games. Illinois is 12-and-7 overall and 2-and-4 in the Big Ten. The Boilermakers are 11-and-7 and 3-and-2.
