SAN DIEGO, Calif. --- Incredible second-half shooting from PacWest favorites, Point Loma, turned a solid night into a sour one for Biola Men's Basketball as the Eagles watched a three-point game turn into a 28-point loss over the final 20 minutes. PLNU shot 64 percent in that second half to take an 82-54 win in the teams' first meeting of the year.
 
Even after a somewhat arduous traffic-filled journey out to Point Loma, Biola came out fresh, looking focused and eager to compete with the team that's been targeted as the far and away top team in the conference.
 
Biola rode a big first-half from Michael Bagatourian (10 first-half points) and the fact that foul trouble kept PLNU superstar Daulton Hommes on the bench for much of that first half to a narrow deficit at the halftime break.
 
Neither team was shooting very well, which helped the Eagles deal with the fact that Point Loma kept trying to up the tempo on their offensive end and force shots from the perimeter. Biola shot just 37 percent in the first half and PLNU just 39 percent as the two teams combined to miss 41 field goals.
 
That story changed in the second half though, as the host school came out and immediately caught fire from the floor. After scoring just 26 points in the whole first half, the Sea Lions dropped 30 in the first 10 minutes of the second frame and eventually ended up outscoring the Eagles 56-31 overall in the final 20 minutes of play.
 
Hommes led the effort with 14 second-half points, after BU managed to limit him to just four points in the first frame. Right behind him, and the man that really turned the tide was Ben Okhotin. Okhotin attempted (and missed) just one shot in the first half, but then he came out and jacked up five threes in the second half and made four of them to contribute 12 points.
 
Biola did what it could to keep up offensively in the second half, but five turnovers, a 23-9 rebounding disadvantage and going just 9-of-26 from the floor made that difficult and offset the good that came from Alex Wright's 3-of-5, 10-point second-half.
 
So, Biola will go back to the drawing board again ahead of this weekend's road contest at Concordia-Irvine. The Eagles came into the game as the top rebounding team in the conference, but had a 41-24 negative margin in that category on the night, so that's one area to clean up as they head into a meeting with a confident CUI team that's won six straight, including beating Azusa Pacific by 20 points Wednesday night.
 
Biola falls to 6-3 (2-1 PacWest) after tonight's loss. Point Loma improved to 7-2 (3-0 PacWest). Catch Biola at CUI at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday night. The game will be live streamed for free at portal.stretchinternet.com/cui.