With the NAIA national basketball tournament wrapping up this week, Biola basketball is left wondering what could have been.

As many of the players and coaches look to put 2014 behind them and turn their attention to next season, three individuals will not be suiting up for the Eagles in 2015.

Seniors Adijat Adams, Andre Murillo and Cody Wittick have played their last season in La Mirada and are now faced with the same question all graduating seniors face: What’s next?

Adijat Adams

It’s no secret that forward Adijat Adams is dedicated to her sport. Adams helped her team push through a rough 0-10 start to the season and end up fifth in conference play and 12-19 in their overall season. Since coming to Biola, Adams has achieved 1,500 shots in her collegiate career.

“Every summer and every break I was just like ‘I have to work out, I have to put up 500 shots or more than that,’” Adams said. “I knew what I had to do to try to better myself every year and how to accomplish that.”

Now that Adams is finishing up her last semester as an art major at Biola, her hope for the future is to play on the professional level overseas as she begins the process of finding an agent and sending film highlights of her collegiate career.

“Through the ups and downs, my basketball career has taught me to be resilient in every situation in my life and taking it to God,” Adams said. “That is what I’m going to try to hold on to when I graduate from Biola.”

Cody Wittick

After transferring following his sophomore season, guard Cody Wittick played a pivotal role in the 2012-2013 season, finishing second on the team in assists and free-throw percentage. After bringing in a large group of players in 2013-2014, Wittick saw his playing time drop. He played in every game throughout the season and racking up a .708 free-throw percentage.

“I’ve loved my time at Biola. The fact that God is number one here is huge for me,” Wittick said. “The team this year has been great in terms of leading them.”

Wittick will be doing World Race starting this coming September, a missions organization where young adults spend 11 months in 11 different countries.

“I’ve never really done missions before and now I’ll be doing missions on steroids,” Wittick said.

In addition to serving, Wittick hopes to continue in the basketball sphere doing some sort of coaching and training.

Andre Murillo

Playing just two seasons at Biola, forward Andre Murillo made an impact both on the court and off. In the 2011-2012 season, Murillo led the team in total points and was second in points per game. After taking a year off to deal with an injury, he emerged as the dominant player on the team in 2013-2014, leading the team in points, points per game, field-goal percentage and rebounds.

In the midst of a solid career at Biola, Murillo’s off-the-court attitude defines the player he is.

“I know that I can just walk away from a practice or a game, convicted, motivated, encouraged, all these things that I think are so essential to being a Christian,” Murillo said.

Having only been a Christian for four years, Murillo believes Biola has played an integral part in helping shape and care for him during the early years of his walk.

“These last three years I’ve really learned that people here don’t just love me for what I do on the court, and I’m not less-loved for not performing well,” Murillo said. “I think the Biola community has been the image of Christ in that way for me. They’ve loved me through the ups and downs.”

Murillo plans to continue playing basketball despite finishing his college career. He is looking at returning to Germany, where he grew up, to play professionally and continue on with the sport he loves.

Despite great senior leadership from Adams, Wittick and Murillo, both Eagles teams were unable to advance in the post-season.

The men and the women teams were eliminated in the first round of the Golden State Athletic Conference and fell short of snagging an at-large bid for the national tournament based on their regular season record.

Both coaches have a solid supply of young talent that will look to fill the gaps left by the seniors and push the Eagles farther in the years to come.