LA MIRADA, Calif. --- Biola Men's Basketball is restocked and reloaded for a productive second year of PacWest Conference competition, featuring a squad of 16 men including nine players not on last year's roster. It will be year number 39 for Dr. Dave Holmquist and his Eagles are eager to prove that last season was just a blip on the radar.

In Wednesday's PacWest Conference Preseason Coaches' Poll, the Eagles were selected to finish seventh in the 12-team league. Biola went 5-15 in PacWest play last season to place 11th in the then-14 team conference.

The Eagles' seventh place pick shows a bit of respect that the teams around the league are giving BU, but it still does not match up with what the team is hungry to accomplish - a top-3 conference finish and place in the National Christian College Athletic Association playoffs.

Biola's 11-17 overall record from a year ago was just the third losing season in coach Holmquist's five decades of coaching at Biola. It proved just how difficult the transition from the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics to the NCAA Division II actually is.

However, a promising group of incoming players and solid cadre of experienced, productive returners has this year's squad poised to even the ship in 2018-19 and set things up for a big splash in 2019-20, when the Eagles will likely become NCAA postseason eligible.

Four of Biola's game one starting five are returning to this year's roster: Michael Bagatourian, Trevor Treinen, Levi Auble and Alex Talma. The Eagles also get back Steve Herve, who started 59 games from 2014-17 before sitting out last year with injury.

Add to that a transfer from California Baptist, Alex Wright, who fill fight for some serious minutes, and other newcomers Chris Cagle, Erik Kinnebrew and Whitten Dominguez and you will see a longer, more athletic and better shooting Biola team that's capable of making noise in the PacWest Conference and could build toward being one of the better teams in the West Region.

It all begins to defense for coach Holmquist coached teams. If the Eagles can be disciplined and force teams to make unfavorable shots they should be capable of competing on any given night in a very tough league. Last year, teams scored an average of 73.5 points-per-game against Biola and shot .462 from the field.

Those numbers are much higher than the precedent set by the program over the few previous years, 62.2ppg in 2016-17, 60.4ppg in 2015-16. Both seasons before Biola held its opponents to under 40 percent from the field. A number it will aim to get back to this year.

Point Loma, who went 21-10 (15-5 PacWest) last year to finish third, was picked to win the conference with 142 total points in the poll. Azusa Pacific (122) and Concordia Irvine (118) rounded out an all-Southern California top-3. Biola received 70 total points to finish eight points behind Academy of Art for the last spot in the top-half of the preseason standings.