Biola’s men’s basketball team had an extremely tough schedule these last few days, as they faced the top two teams in the Golden State Athletic Conference. They went on the road against No. 2 Hope International in a down-to-the-wire thriller on Saturday that ended in heartbreak for the Eagles. After two days rest, they went on to play at home against the No. 1 Concordia Eagles on Tuesday, coming away with the loss after playing a solid first half. With these two losses, Biola moves to 16-11 overall and 4-9 in GSAC. This is good enough for sixth place in GSAC, which guarantees that the Eagles will have a post season.
“We have locked a spot in our conference tournament,” said senior forward Mike Kurtz. “[And] we would have to win that to go to the national tourney — but anything is possible.”
Biola came into Saturday’s game without much expectation of victory, since the last time the two teams faced each other, Hope handily dispatched the Eagles in a 65-40 victory. This time, senior guard Pierre Zook and sophomore guard Dakari Archer had other plans in mind. The two guards combined for 38 of Biola’s 55 points on the night, with Zook contributing 21, and Archer chipping in 17. Zook completely dominated the first half, making seven of his 10 shots from the field for 17 points. Archer took over the second half, scoring 16 points, including burying all three of his three-point attempts. After those two, the next closest Biola scorer was Kurtz, who contributed seven points and 11 rebounds.
Biola outscored Hope in the first half and went into halftime with a two point lead. They kept fighting throughout the second half, eventually getting the game’s largest lead of seven points with 10:37 left. Hope stuck around and took the lead away with 2:26 left. A number of late fouls helped them on their way, until it came down to a two point game with two seconds on the clock. Zook heaved up a last-second three-pointer, which unfortunately bounced off the rim, ending the Eagles’ upset hopes on Valentine’s Day.
Given a few days to think over that loss, Biola then faced up against another difficult team, the Concordia Eagles, on Tuesday. The game started out well for Biola, as they shot 59.3 percent from the field in the first half. Archer and Kurtz contributed 10 points each, helping the Eagles to a 37-36 lead going into half.
The visiting Eagles came out of halftime and starting lighting it up, improving from a 42.9 percent first half field goal percentage to an impressive 57.1 percent for the second half, whereas Biola’s field goal production reduced slightly to 50 percent. The difference in the game came from free throws and three pointers, as Concordia made six more threes and 10 more free throws than Biola did. Archer, Zook and Kurtz were the stars of the game for Biol again, scoring 18, 16 and 12 points respectively. Kurtz ended up the only Biola player to finish with a double-double, grabbing 13 rebounds. These numbers turned out to be not enough to overcome Concordia however, and the game ended up in a 82-68 loss.
As the regular season starts winding down, the Eagles start to turn their attention to what needs to be done in order to make their postseason chances as good as possible.
“We want to stay healthy and focused,” said Zook. “Our defense and rebounding are going to be very key as we head into playoffs.”
Biola’s next game is on Saturday, as they face their third-to-last opponent of the regular season, the Vanguard University Lions at 7:30 p.m. in Chase Gymnasium.
