LA MIRADA, Calif. --- The highly anticipated 2019-20 Biola Men's Basketball season is finally ready to tip-off this week, with a pair of games over at CSU Los Angeles as part of the PacWest-CCAA Crossover tournament. It will be the debut of a huge new class of transfers that look to bring a whole new life to the program in the first official NCAA Division II season.

THIS WEEK: vs CSU San Marcos (0-0) - Friday Nov. 8 at 5 p.m. (at CSULA); at CSU Los Angeles (0-0) - Saturday Nov. 9 at 7 p.m.

MULTIMEDIA: Biola offers free live video of all home events at portal.stretchinternet.com/biola. Live statistics will be available at that link and also at https://athletics.biola.edu/sidearmstats/mbball/summary. See the links with the previews below to find live coverage for all road contests.

BIOLA VS CSU SAN MARCOS (0-0): Friday, Nov. 8 at 5 p.m. at CSULA \\ Live Stats \\ Live Video ($8)
Biola and CSU San Marcos have met all but one season since 2011-12. The only break in the Eagles' and Cougars' back-and-forth came during Biola's 30-4 season back in 2015-16. That was CSUSM's first year of its own NCAA Division II transition and as members of the California Collegiate Athletic Association. Biola is 4-3 all-time against the Cougars, including wins in two of their last three meetings. Biola hosted CSUSM as part of last season's season-opening CCAA-PacWest Crossover. Dr. Dave Holmquist's team began the season on the right foot with a 64-58 victory. Alex Wright had his first of many fantastic games during last year's freshman season. He's expected to do even more this year for BU, moving out of the point guard position and into a spot where he can make more use of his scoring abilities and strong defensive instincts. CSUSM would go on to have a 9-19 season in 2018-19, which was a drop-off from their first three seasons in NCAA Division II, when B.J. Foster's team went 53-31 with a trio of winning seasons. The Cougars were recently picked to finish 11th in the conference in the CCAA Preseason Coaches' Poll. Despite the finish in the preseason poll, CSUSM looks to have an injection of hope for the new year thanks to an influx of scoring talent via some transfers. This list includes players who led their previous college in scoring: Marcus Brown, Blake Seits and Darius Goudeau. Two others were second on their team in scoring, including Alex Gil-Fernandez' 18.8ppg for Foothill College and Kyle Scalmanini's 14.8ppg for Westmont. The Eagles will need to shut down a lot of scorers to open the year with a win. CSUSM is 1-2 in their NCAA Division II era in games hosted at CSULA. Biola is 0-1 all-time at CSULA's facility, but that one match was all the way back in 2007.

CSULA CAMPUS MAP | CSULA TICKETING INFORMATION

BIOLA AT CSU LOS ANGELES (0-0): Saturday, Nov. 9 at 7 p.m. \\ Live Stats \\ Live Video ($8)
Up in game two for Biola is its first (and only) true road contest of the 2019-20 non-conference schedule. Biola will go toe-to-toe with a CSULA team that beat the Eagles 79-61 at Chase Gymnasium in the CCAA-PacWest Conference Crossover last season. That game was a part of a 4-2 non-conference season for the Golden Eagles. CSULA was 18-12 overall last season and 7-6 at home. Biola is 19-8 all-time against CSU Los Angeles, with all but three of those meetings coming before the 2004-05 season. Biola won six in a row against CSULA between 1995 and 2002 to pad the all-time mark a bit. CSU Los Angeles was recently picked to finish fifth in the CCAA Preseason Coaches' Poll. CSULA boasts a trio of seniors that figure to play a big role in the teams' ability to find success this season. Guard Shacquille Dawkins, forward Ja'Sean Lewis and guard Fard Muhammad combined for 30.3 points-per-game last season and 10.2 rebounds-per-game. Both Lewis and Muhammad earned All-CCAA recognition a year ago. Muhammad and Dawkins were two of five players to drop double figures against Biola in last year's matchup. They combined for 24 points on 7-of-19 shooting. Jordan Rogers is the only other Golden Eagles player who had 10+ points against Biola also returning to CSULA's roster this year. CSULA opens its 2019-20 schedule with a Friday evening matchup against PacWest Conference favorites Concordia Irvine.

CSULA CAMPUS MAP | CSULA TICKETING INFORMATION

POLL POSITION: After finishing in a three-way tie for fifth place in 2018-19 Biola was selected to repeat in fifth place in the 2019-20 PacWest Conference Preseason Coaches' Poll. The Eagles garnered 88 total points in the poll to finish just outside of a select top group of four teams in the conference. Concordia Irvine led the way with 137 points and eight of the 12 first-place votes. The Eagles of Irvine went 23-11 last season, including an 18-4 PacWest Conference mark and appearances in the PacWest Conference Tournament championship game and NCAA Division II West Regional. Concordia has already played three games this season thanks to their participation in the Disney Division II Tip-Off Classic. Concordia began 2-0 with wins over UT Permian Basin and Wayne State, but was tripped up in overtime last time out against the 2017-18 NCAA Division II national champions, Ferris State. Concordia's head coach Ken Ammann is the second longest tenured coach in the PacWest Conference with 18 years under his belt at CUI. He's second only to Biola's Dr. Dave Holmquist, of course. Ammann comes into the year with a sparkling 465-148 (.759) all-time record at CUI. Ammann's career has closely mirrored Holmquists to this point. After his first 18 years at Biola, Holmquist had a 467-137 (.773) overall coaching record. After CUI in the poll came Azusa Pacific (3 first-place votes), Chaminade (1 first-place vote) and Point Loma to round out the top-4 selected above BU. All four of those opponents went 2-0 against Biola in 2018-19. Two of those four have brand new head coaches (APU, PLNU). 

MEET THE TEAM: There's going to be a lot of time to get to know this team in the preseason with four of the Eagles' six non-conference games at home and zero of those six located more than 17 miles from the Biola campus. That time will be necessary with just five returning players on Holmquist's 12-man roster for 2019-20. Alex Wright and Michael Bagatourian are the only returning starters, with Whitten Dominiguez, Tyus Dennis and Will Shannon all returning after filling role positions last year. Of the seven newcomers two are freshman and the five others are transfers. One of the freshman will sit out this season, giving this Eagles' team 10 of 11 players with bushels of collegiate experience. Four of the five Biola transfers have NCAA Basketball experience, ranging from NCAA Division I UC Irvine (Solomon Ruddell) and California Baptist (Marquise Mosley) to out-of-region NCAA Division II foes Colorado State-Pueblo (Cade Carroll) and Southwest Baptist (Chris Rossow). The non-NCAA transfer, Jesse Elrod, played a stellar two seasons at nearby Citrus College, earning all-conference honors and helping the Owls to 52-12 overall record during his time with the team. His teammate and conference player of the year, Josh Caston, is headed to Point Loma this year, which will be an interesting storyline to follow. Mosley is here for just one season after exhausting three years of eligibility in four years at CBU. Ruddell and Carroll each have three seasons left and Rossow and Elrod will have two. Mosley is the only senior on the 2019-20 roster for Holmquist, meaning a sustainable future of success is within grasp for this group.

HOLM-QUEST FOR 1,000: Head Coach Dr. Dave Holmquist enters his 40th season as the head coach at Biola this season. He's coached at BU since the 1978-79 season, but took a few years off here and there along the way. The legendary coach has 937 wins at Biola and 973 wins overall to sit on the doorstep to history. Holmquist's side would need quite the remarkable year to get him to 1,000 this season, but chances are he could grasp 1,000 total victories before the end of 2020. He would be just the fifth coach in four-year college men's basketball to reach the 1,000-win plateau. The most recent to cross the threshold was Jefferson University's Herb Magee. Magee, who's coached the NCAA Division II Rams (formerly Philadelphia University) since 1967, eclipsed the 1,000-win total on February 7, 2015. Others with 1,000 officially recognized coaching victories are Duke's Mike Krzyzewski, McKendree's Harry Statham (NCAA III) and Oregon Tech's Danny Miles (NAIA). Holmquist or Syracuse Head Coach Jim Boeheim should be the next to hit 1,000. Entering 2019-20, Boeheim has 946 officially recognized wins in his coaching career, which began back in 1976. He had 101 wins vacated by the NCAA, so when he reaches 1,000 he will technically be doing so for the second time. His Orange have averaged right at 20 wins-per-year over the last five seasons.

IT'S REAL STARTING NOW: The 2019-20 Biola Men's Basketball season has added significance in that it's the Eagles' first as full members in NCAA Division II. Back on July 12 the Biola campus received a call from the NCAA Division II Membership Committee notifying BU of its successful completion of the membership transition process. The change became official as of September 1 and now Biola is officially eligible for NCAA postseason play, national and regional rankings and official NCAA postseason honors for the first time. The Eagles are also now eligible to compete in the PacWest Conference tournament for the first time. The top-6 teams after the regular season qualify for the conference tournament. Biola finished in a tie for fifth last season and would have been into the postseason tournament had the Eagles been eligible. Azusa Pacific will host this year's tournament between March 5-7. This year Biola will also hope to finish top-8 in the NCAA Division II West Region and earn a spot in the NCAA West Regional and ultimately the national tournament. Last season, Point Loma made a postseason run all the way to the NCAA Division II title game, setting the precedent for a PacWest team to make a deep journey through the upper echelon of NCAA Division II. The Sea Lions lost in the title game to Northwest Missouri State, which went a perfect 38-0 last season to earn their second title in the last three years. The Bearcats are already 2-0 this season to boast a remarkable 40-game winning streak.

PRESEASON PAUSE: After this weekend's contests Biola will have a nine-day break from competition. The Eagles do not compete at all next week, before cramming in four games in seven days two weeks from now. The long break is similar to one Biola took last season between its final non-conference contest (Nov. 21) and its first PacWest game (Nov. 29). The break did not seem to bear much impact on the Eagles as they won both matchups.

HEADING HOME: After this week Biola Men's Basketball plays the remainder of its non-conference schedule in the friendly confines of Chase Gymnasium. The Eagles play four home games between Nov. 19-25 to prepare for the first two games of its conference schedule to come on the road. Those last four non-conference contests come against non-NCAA Division II teams (La Sierra, Pomona-Pitzer, Saint Katherine, Maine-Ft. Kent). Last season Biola managed a 10-6 home record. The team has 15 true home contests scheduled for the 2019-20 season.

UPCOMING MILESTONES:
Michael Bagatourian - 75 games played (56)
Michael Bagatourian - 300 field goals made (229)
Michael Bagatourian - 200 free throws made (101)
Michael Bagatourian - 300 rebounds (241)
Michael Bagatourian - 200 assists (109)
Michael Bagatourian - 100 steals (55)
Michael Bagatourian - 2,000 minutes (1,616)
Cade Carroll - 1,000 minutes (510)
Cade Carroll - 100 field goals made (61)
Cade Carroll - 200 rebounds (105)
Tyus Dennis - 50 games played (33)
Marquise Mosley - 100 games played (95)
Marquise Mosley - 1,500 minutes (1,331)
Marquise Mosley - 150 field goals made (115)
Marquise Mosley - 100 free throws made (90)
Marquise Mosley - 100 rebounds (93)
Marquise Mosley - 200 assists (144)
Marquise Mosley - 75 steals (43)
Chris Rossow - 2,000 minutes (1,708)
Chris Rossow - 300 field goals made (198)
Chris Rossow - 100 3-point field goals made (58)
Chris Rossow - 200 free throws made (165)
Chris Rossow - 300 rebounds (219)
Chris Rossow - 300 assists (265)
Chris Rossow - 100 steals (81)
Alex Wright - 1,000 minutes (896)
Alex Wright - 100 field goals made (87)
Alex Wright - 200 rebounds (116)
Alex Wright - 100 assists (55)
*Transfer student-athletes include numbers from other NCAA institutions

NEXT WEEK: No games.