LA MIRADA, Calif. --- Head Coach Dr. Dave Holmquist enters this week with 949 wins during his Biola tenure (985 overall). He and the Eagles head north to face Holy Names for the first time this season and pursue a season-sweep of Academy of Art.

THIS WEEK: at Holy Names (7-13; 5-9 PacWest) - Thursday, February 6, 2020 at 7:30 p.m.; at Academy of Art (7-14; 5-9 PacWest) - Saturday, February 8, 2020 at 3:30 p.m.

MULTIMEDIA: Live video and live statistics will be available for all games. See the links below for the direct link for each game. Biola offers free live video of all home events at portal.stretchinternet.com/biola.

BIOLA (12-9, 8-7 PacWest) VS HOLY NAMES (7-13, 5-9 PacWest): Thursday Feb. 6 at 7:30 p.m. \\ Live Stats \\ Live Video ($7.95)
The Eagles head up to Oakland looking to avenge last season's road loss to the Holy Names Hawks. HNU are riding a two-game winning streak following a brutal stretch of their PacWest schedule in which they went 1-11. The last two losses of that stretch came in overtime in the final phase of the always-difficult Hawaiian road trip, as the Hawks lost by three points apiece to Hawaii Pacific and Hawaii Hilo. Holy Names has improved their defense as of late, allowing 50 points or fewer in their recent victories over Dominican and Notre Dame de Namur. The Hawks are always very dangerous in their home gym. Biola and Azusa Pacific both found that out the hard way last season when HNU upset them in back-to-back games despite finishing behind both of the Cornerstone Cup rivals in the 2018-19 PacWest Conference standings. The Eagles hold a 15-3 advantage in the all-time series with Holy Names dating back to1997, and Biola has won three of the four matchups since entering the PacWest. Only one player returns among each teams' top two leading scorers from their last contest. That would be HNU forward Cameron Fini, who dropped 21 points on the Eagles as a freshman coming off the bench. This year, in his first season as a starter, Fini is averaging 10.2 points and a team-high 6.9 rebounds per game entering the week. Sophomore guard Zamaria Odom leads the Hawks in scoring with 11.9 points-per-game in conference play, trailed by junior sixth man guard Justin Chambers (11.1 PPG) and senior guard Rob Fuller (10.9 ppg). Sophomore guard Alex Wright is one of the few Eagles with a history of success against Holy Names, having scored in double digits in each conference game against the Hawks last year.
BIOLA (12-9, 8-7) VS ACADEMY OF ART (7-14, 5-9 PacWest): Saturday Feb. 8 at 3:30 p.m. \\ Live Stats \\ Live Video ($8.00) \\ Last Meeting: Biola wins 75-67
The Eagles go for their first season sweep over Academy of Art since the two teams started facing off as PacWest conference rivals in 2017-18. Biola staved off a second-half ART U rally to win 75-67 at Chase Gymnasium in January. The win was keyed by a total team effort in which all five Eagles starters scored in double digits. The Urban Knights got 20-point performances from junior guards Kai Tease and Stefan Milivojevic in the loss, as the starting backcourt accounted for nearly two-thirds of the team's overall scoring output. Milivojevic has been on fire in PacWest Conference play, averaging nearly 18 points-per-game, but junior forward Josh Hill (10.6 PPG) is the only other Urban Knight averaging a double-digit scoring total in conference play. ART U is also coming off back-to-back wins after a rough stretch of the schedule. The Urban Knights snapped a five-game losing streak (which actually started with the defeat at Biola in January) by winning the final two of their three games in Hawaii and will get a chance to settle in at home against Fresno Pacific before Biola comes to Kezar Pavillion on Saturday. ART U's offense appears to be on the rise, averaging 75 points-per-game during the Hawaii road trip. The Urban Knights had not come close to breaking 70 points in any of their previous four games before then. Junior forward Michael Bagatourian, who led the Eagles with 16 points when the Urban Knights came to Chase in January, is averaging a healthy 13.5 PPG over four career games against ART U. The Eagles are 2-2 in those games and can take the lead in their all-time series against the Urban Knights with a victory in San Francisco on Saturday.
ABOUT LAST WEEK: The Eagles hosted the top two teams in the PacWest Conference last week (PLNU, APU). Biola suffered a pair of double-digit losses to drop to 9-2 inside of Chase Gymnasium this season. Michael Bagatourian had a solid week scoring the rock with an 18 points-per-game average and 10.5 rebounds-per-game. It's the second week in a row he averaged a double-double. He only made 39 percent of his shots from the field, though, and that will have to go up to get some Ws this week. Chris Rossow was the best scorer for the Eagles in that he averaged 15 points-per-game on nearly 56 percent shooting. Biola shot just 39 percent and averaged just 65 points-per-game on the week. Look for both numbers to go up this week in NorCal.

ROAD TO AZUSA: Biola needs to finish inside of the top-6 in the conference in order to make this season's PacWest Conference tournament, held at the Felix Event Center at Azusa Pacific. The Eagles are in good shape at this point of the season, but they still have a bit of work to do to clinch a spot. Biola sits in fifth place in the conference standings to start off the week. Biola is two games back from Concordia Irvine in fourth-place (9-4) and one game ahead of Hawaii Hilo and Hawaii Pacific who are tied for sixth place. The Eagles will need to stay in front of both Hawaii Hilo and Hawaii Pacific, since both teams beat Biola once already this year and as of today would hold the tiebreaker over BU.

ROAD RAGE: It's been a challenging year for Biola Men's Basketball in games away from Chase Gymnasium. The Eagles are just 3-7 in games away from home. Biola has lost three in a row on the road, but it's been almost a full month since the team's last road game (Jan. 18). The Eagles are a combined 7-2 all-times in road contests against this week's opponents. So there's hope for improvement to the road record. 

PUTTING IN WORK: Biola Head Coach Dr. Dave Holmquist has always played with a tight rotation of players, usually featuring a rotation of 7-8 deep. This year he's relied heavily on the work of his starting five. The Eagles have three of the top-5 players in the conference in terms of minutes-per-game. Alex Wright leads all players in the conference with a 35 minutes-per-game mark. Michael Bagatourian and Marquise Mosley both have 34+ and sit fourth and fifth in the league.

CRASHING THE BOARDS: Biola leads the conference in defensive rebounding this year. The team brings down almost 28 defensive rebounds-per-game and 39 total rebounds-per-game. Alex Wright and Michael Bagatourian have played a big role in the Eagles' ability to bring down boards. During the last two weeks both men averaged double-digit rebounds and they are now two of the top-3 in the league in rebounding. Only Azusa Pacific's Selom Mawugbe has them beat. Wright is now up to 8.1 rebounds-per-game to lead the team. Bagatourian is just behind him at 7.8 rebounds-per-game. For Bagatourian, that average is 3.2 rebounds higher than his previous career-best (4.6/game his freshman season). Wright is also on pace for a career-best. He had 4.1 rebounds-per-game last year and is +4 this year.

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. The PacWest had three teams (PLNU, Concordia Irvine, Chaminade) make the eight-team west regional.

UPCOMING MILESTONES:
Michael Bagatourian - 75 games played (77)
Michael Bagatourian - 500 field goals made (353)
Michael Bagatourian - 200 free throws made (145)
Michael Bagatourian - 400 rebounds (404)
Michael Bagatourian - 200 assists (158)
Michael Bagatourian - 100 steals (73)
Michael Bagatourian - 2,500 minutes (2,340)
Tyus Dennis - 50 games played (38)
Marquise Mosley - 120 games played (115)
Marquise Mosley - 2,000 minutes (2,013)
Marquise Mosley - 300 field goals made (231)
Marquise Mosley - 200 free throws made (152)
Marquise Mosley - 150 rebounds (135)
Marquise Mosley - 200 assists (225)
Marquise Mosley - 75 steals (63)
Chris Rossow - 2,500 minutes (2,496)
Chris Rossow - 300 field goals made (283)
Chris Rossow - 100 3-point field goals made (88)
Chris Rossow - 250 free throws made (219)
Chris Rossow - 300 rebounds (294)
Chris Rossow - 350 assists (322)
Chris Rossow - 150 steals (108)
Alex Wright - 1,500 minutes (1,629)
Alex Wright - 200 field goals made (160)
Alex Wright - 300 rebounds (287)
Alex Wright - 100 assists (104)
*Transfer student-athletes include numbers from other NCAA institutions

NEXT WEEK: vs. Chaminade (13-7, 11-4 PacWest) - Thursday Feb. 13 at 7:30 p.m.; vs. Hawaii Pacific (9-12, 7-7 PacWest) - Saturday Feb. 15 at 3:30 p.m.