LA MIRADA, Calif. --- After a four-game winning streak ended non-conference play for Biola, the Eagles took nine days off for competition over Thanksgiving break and now are ready to return to the hardwood. Biola hits the road to Northern California to begin the 2019-20 PacWest Conference schedule with matchups at Notre Dame de Namur and Dominican. 

THIS WEEK: at Notre Dame de Namur (1-5) - Thursday, Dec. 5 at 7:30 p.m.; at Domincan (0-6) - Saturday, Dec. 7 at 7:30 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 AT NOTRE DAME DE NAMUR (1-5): Thursday, Dec. 5 at 7:30 p.m. \\ Live Stats \\ Live Video ($6.95)
Biola Men's Basketball begins the 2019-20 PacWest Conference season officially on Thursday night up in Belmont. The Eagles face Notre Dame de Namur in the conference opener for the second consecutive year. Last season Biola hosted the Argonauts and earned a 59-50 win to move to 5-2 and 1-0 in PacWest play. That's the record the Eagles are once again after if things go well this week. Biola is riding a four-game winning streak thanks to the lighter portion of its preseason schedule. The Eagles are 5-1 all-time against the Argos, including wins in every meeting between the two sides in Biola's PacWest Conference era. Biola won by eight points over the Argos in their first Pacwest meeting back in January 2018. Then won by nine points in last year's season opener, but exploded for a 28-point victory up in Belmont in the last meeting of the 2018-19 season. Biola is looking for a similar result in this meeting, coming into the week with the best scoring margin in the PacWest Conference to this point in the season. Biola averages 82.3 points-per-game while allowing opponents 72.5 on average (+9.8). NDNU is second-to-last in that category through their first six games, scoring 70.8 points-per-game and surrendering 80.8 (-10.0). Only Dominican, Biola's second opponent of the week, has a worse margin to this point of the year (-11.7). Six of Biola's top-8 scorers in the 82-54 win over NDNU last season are no longer on the team. So, Biola will look to Michael Bagatourian (12) and Alex Wright (10) to repeat their double-digit efforts and then rely on their other new weapons to fill in the gaps. One of those newcomers, Marquise Mosley, has experience against NDNU. He played three games against the Argos during his time at California Baptist, twice playing right around or above 20 minutes and scoring significant points (12pts, 8pts) back in the 2016-17 and 2015-16 seasons. The Argos come into the week off a 1-1 effort on Thanksgiving weekend. The Argos picked up their first win of the season in a 77-63 effort against Western New Mexico, but then suffered a 95-63 setback to UC San Diego, who's 8-0, number one in the west region and ranked fourth in the last NCAA Division II national poll. Trevor Thompson has been the guy for NDNU to this point in the season. The small sophomore guard leads the team with 20.8 points-per-game, mostly powered by three-point shooting. Twenty-six of his 40 made field goals this year have come from distance. He leads the conference in three-point makes per game. He's shooting 43 percent from beyond the arc to this point. Thompson is the reigning PacWest Conference Player of the Week following a 54-point explosion in NDNU's two games last week, including a 30-piece against UCSD. He's only had one game with single-digit scoring so far and has gone for 20 or more four times. The other weapon of interest for the Argos team is junior big man Ajay Singh. Singh's averaging 15 points-per-game and just over seven rebounds-per-game as the only forward on the NDNU team that's had any consistent offensive success. His field goal percentage of .474 is a smidge lower than you want your number one big man to have, so the Eagles have a pretty good chance of limiting his impact with the solid rim protection provided by Jesse Elrod, Solomon Ruddell and even Michael Bagatourian.
BIOLA AT DOMINICAN (0-6): Saturday, Dec. 10 at 7:30 p.m. \\ Live Stats \\ Live Video ($10)
The PacWest slate continues its soft opening on Saturday evening as Biola plays at the winless Dominican Penguins. Dominican finished 10th in the conference last season and was picked 11th in the PacWest Coaches' Preseason Poll, just ahead of the Eagles' Thursday opponent NDNU. Dominican built its preseason schedule the right way, playing five of its six games against in-region opponents and all six against NCAA Division II schools. But, unfortunately for the Penguins, it made it tough for them to scrape out even one win. The closest Dominican came was last week before Thanksgiving when they suffered a one-point loss at CSU Dominguez Hills to kick-off their run at a tournament the Toros were hosting. The Penguins and Toros traded the lead constantly throughout that game with Dominican taking a 64-62 lead on their final offensive possession of the game. But the home team hit a huge three-pointer with three seconds on the clock to earn the 65-64 win. The 65 points were the best defensive effort of the year for DUC, who's given up at least 79 in every other game this season, including an average of 88 points-per-game in its last two contests (losses to Purdue Northwest and Chico State). Dominican and Biola have the same schedule structure this week, both playing at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday before closing out with this contest on Saturday. The Penguins host Point Loma on Thursday, a team Dominican has not beaten since January 2014. That's six in a row in favor of the Sea Lions, after a streak of five in a row from Dominican. Biola is 15-1 all-time against Dominican, including wins in 11 straight. Biola is 3-0 in the NCAA Division II era, winning each game over DUC by between 10-20 points. Michael Bagatourian was BU's leading scorer in the last meeting against Dominican, going for 17 points on 6-of-9 shooting, including four made three-pointers. The Penguins are a team that's susceptible to the three, allowing its opponents an average of nine made three-pointers per game this season and letting teams shoot 50 percent from beyond the arc. Biola only made nine total threes against them in two meetings last year. Part of that has to do with the fact that the lane was wide open in the first meeting of 2018-19, allowing Alex Talma to score 23 points off a perfect 10-for-10 shooting effort. Dominican has three players scoring double-digits to this point in the season, led by junior Jordan Williams who's been their clear best player to this point. The athletic guard averages 16.3 points-per-game and 5.5 rebounds-per-game while shooting about 50 percent. Biola held Williams to seven points in 67 minutes in the two meetings between BU and DUC last season. He was just 3-of-12 from the floor, committed six fouls and turned the ball over five times. He'll be eager to bounce back against Biola this season. They will run just about everything through their guards, with all of their top-4 scorers playing the perimeter. Romeo Mays, who averages 30 minutes-per-game, has been their most productive forward with 6.3 points-per-game and 5.7 rebounds-per-game. But he shoots just 42 percent. 
PACWEST PREMIERE: Biola is 1-1 all-time in PacWest Conference openers. The Eagles lost to Hawaii Pacific on the road in their first-ever PacWest Conference competition back in 2017. That was part of a tough 0-10 start to the PacWest era two years ago. Last season, though, the Eagles won both of their opening week contests, setting down both NDNU and Holy Names at home. Biola is 7-3 in conference openers over the last 10 seasons. That stretch began with a landmark 61-49 win over Fresno Pacific back on December 1, 2009, when the Sunbirds were ranked No. 3 in the NAIA.

STREAKY: Biola lost two in a row to begin the season, but has since won four in a row. With the Eagles heavily favored in both matchups this week, there's a chance to extend the streak to six wins in a row. That would be the longest winning streak for Biola in the PacWest era and longest since the 2016-17 team began its season with 11 wins in a row. The Eagles went 26-6 in that season, making the NAIA tournament for the second season in a row and final time. Things get much tougher next week as the Eagles host Hawaii Hilo and play at Point Loma. The Vulcans were picked to finish eighth in the conference and Point Loma picked fourth. Biola won both meetings against Hilo last season and is 1-2 against them in the PacWest era. The Eagles have not beaten PLNU since the 2011-12 season.

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 begins the year with 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 7-0 this season to boast a remarkable 45-game winning streak. They have an incomprehensible scoring margin of +27.3 so far this season. The PacWest had three teams (PLNU, Concordia Irvine, Chaminade) make the eight-team west regional.

UPCOMING MILESTONES:
Michael Bagatourian - 75 games played (62)
Michael Bagatourian - 300 field goals made (266)
Michael Bagatourian - 200 free throws made (115)
Michael Bagatourian - 300 rebounds (279)
Michael Bagatourian - 200 assists (126)
Michael Bagatourian - 100 steals (61)
Michael Bagatourian - 2,000 minutes (1,811)
Cade Carroll - 1,000 minutes (515)
Cade Carroll - 100 field goals made (63)
Cade Carroll - 200 rebounds (107)
Tyus Dennis - 50 games played (34)
Marquise Mosley - 100 games played (101)
Marquise Mosley - 1,500 minutes (1,532)
Marquise Mosley - 150 field goals made (153)
Marquise Mosley - 100 free throws made (107)
Marquise Mosley - 100 rebounds (106)
Marquise Mosley - 200 assists (166)
Marquise Mosley - 75 steals (48)
Chris Rossow - 2,000 minutes (1,862)
Chris Rossow - 300 field goals made (227)
Chris Rossow - 100 3-point field goals made (68)
Chris Rossow - 200 free throws made (172)
Chris Rossow - 300 rebounds (241)
Chris Rossow - 300 assists (283)
Chris Rossow - 100 steals (91)
Alex Wright - 1,000 minutes (1,082)
Alex Wright - 100 field goals made (108)
Alex Wright - 200 rebounds (156)
Alex Wright - 100 assists (73)
*Transfer student-athletes include numbers from other NCAA institutions

NEXT WEEK: vs Hawaii Hilo (1-1) - Tuesday, December 10 at 7:30 p.m.; at Point Loma (4-2) - Saturday, December 14 at 4 p.m.