LA MIRADA, Calif. --- As Dr. Dave Holmquist continues his climb to 1,000 career coaching victories, we want to take some time to look back at some memorable moments during his five decades at Biola. 

The 2001-02 Biola Men's Basketball season was one of the most emotionally-charged, most enjoyable and most successful years in Biola history. It's definitely another remarkable highlight in the tremendous career of Head Coach Dr. Dave Holmquist.

This Biola team was playing for so much more than victories in 2001-02, not only playing in the wake of the national tragedy of September 11, 2001, but also playing for the memory of their teammate Christyan Rios who had passed away due to a fall while hiking the summer preceding the 2001-02 season.

RIOS ARTICLE

"He was as nice a kid as I've ever coached," said Holmquist. "He had a great spirit and teammates loved him."

While dealing with all of the emotions of those events, Holmquist and the Eagles were fresh off a 26-7 campaign in 2000-01, which saw the Eagles finished second in the stacked Golden State Athletic Conference (APU went 17-1 to win) and make it to the NAIA National Championship tournament for the fifth-consecutive season.

Let's take some time to look back at this historic season, which includes a championship, a milestone, the most memorable game in Biola-APU history, a No. 1 national ranking and much more.

Coach brought back four of his five starters from 2000-01 and the Eagles were ready for their shot at something that to that point had eluded Holmquist and his sides, a Golden State Athletic Conference title.

Abiodun Medupin, Nate Strong, Mark Thrash and Bryan Weakly led Biola to a 13-5 conference mark in 2000-01 and were back seeking even better in a 20-game GSAC slate in 2001-02. The group would be joined by impact newcomers Kevin Augustine and BJ Foster as they sought to make history for BU. Foster came to Biola after earning all-conference and All-American honors at Point Loma. Augustine was a NCAA Division I transfer from Nebraska.

Strong was the leader of the team, coming off NAIA All-American third team honors after averaging around 17 points-per-game and 7 rebounds-per-game while shooting 52 percent throughout his 23 appearances.

The 2001-02 campaign begin the year in Las Vegas as the Eagles faced Montana Tech and Robert Morris College (Ill.) in a pair of neutral site matchups before coming back to Chase Gym for one non-conference tuneup prior to starting GSAC play in late-November.

The Eagles had nine non-conference matchups strewn throughout their regular season that year and went 9-0 in such matchups, outsourcing those opponents on average 91-62 in those nine wins. That was a precursor to what to expect out of this team throughout the entire 01-02 season as this team was solid on both ends of the floor.

Biola began GSAC play with 12-consecutive conference wins and went 20-0 overall to begin the year, quickly finding itself in the national spotlight as the No. 1 ranked team in the NAIA. The Eagles' only close calls in that entire run were a 58-57 win at home against Westmont on Dec. 1, 2001 and an 85-83 barn-burner against Azusa Pacific on Jan. 8, 2002. 

The APU win came in the middle of a stretch of dominance from Kevin Augustine, who scored 20+ points and led Biola in scoring in six-straight games. He'd end up second on  the team in scoring that year, averaging 15.03 points-per-game. Strong was the team-leader with 15.24 ppg.

The first game of that Augustine hot streak was a monumental one as Biola dismissed Point Loma 87-58 inside Golden Gymnasium to earn coach Holmquist his 600th career coaching victory.

The milestone win came just 3 years, 10 months and seven days after win no. 500. It was the second-smallest amount of time between 100 wins in Holmquist's career. Having teams that go 29-8, 28-7, 26-7 and then 29-5 certainly helps speed up the trek to those round numbers. 

The late-1990s and early-2000s is definitely one of the most successful stretches ever for this Biola Men's Basketball program, which is really saying something. Those four years are a part of an incredible 23 seasons in which a Holmquist-coached team has lost single-digit numbers of games.

The first APU win was nice, but the second regular season win of Azusa Pacific is one that is forever etched in the minds of Biola Basketball fans of the early-2000s and lives on even today. It was easy to recollect the game over the past few seasons when Blake Shannon, Jr. hit a buzzer-beater in 2018 and Michael Bagatourian scored a last-possession bucket to sink the Cougars in the playoffs just last year. 

Both of those were great, but Bryan Weakley's heroics back in 2002 are what cemented this rivalry as the best "small college" rivalry in all of basketball.

LA Times Article About APU-BU Rivalry

Biola traveled to APU on Feb. 12, 2002 sporting a 23-2 overall mark, while the defending GSAC Champion Cougars came into the night winners of their last six in a row and sitting at 20-4 overall. Both teams had good memory of Biola's two-point win from just over a month before and 2,977 fans were on hand to watch what would happen in the rematch.

The match had added importance, because a win from Biola would go a long way towards stopping APU from accomplishing what they called the "Decade of the Cougar". APU had won nine-consecutive GSAC titles and Biola was the only team in the league who had any chance to stop it from becoming a perfect 10-for-10.

Biola stormed out of the gates and gut punched the crowd at the Felix Event Center while building what swelled to as much as a 21-point lead with 12 minutes left on the clock. Biola's defense held the Cougars to just 23 percent shooting in the first half (7-for-30). 

The Cougars proved to be down but not out as APU breathed new life into its enormous contingent of fans while using a 29-6 run to steal a late 60-58 lead on a Brett Michel three-pointer with 00:39 to play.

That 39 seconds proved to be too much for Holmquist's Eagles as Biola was able to run a play that got Weakley a look from the corner which splashed through the net with 11 ticks left on the clock. Augustine, who was involved in just about everything throughout this year, was the one to get the assist on the famed bucket. 

"That's definitely the biggest shot of my career," Weakley said. "Either we're going to win the game, or we were going to lose another GSAC title."

OC REGISTER Game Recap | SGVN Recap

Weakley is right. A loss would've made the road to a GSAC title a whole lot tougher, because Biola and APU both would've left Felix Event Center that night with three GSAC losses (Biola 14-3, APU 13-3) had he not hit that shot.

Instead, the Eagles soared out to a 15-2 GSAC mark and had a full 2.5-game advantage on the Cougars with just three regular-season games left. 

"When you have those big leads and you're playing against a team that's not going to stop playing hard and is well-coached, you expect this to happen," said Holmquist. "Maybe we got a little cautious and they got bolder, but thank goodness Bryan hit a huge shot at the end, and we're thrilled to win it."

The win was extra sweet because standout Cougars' guard Caleb Gervin publicly guaranteed an APU victory in the leadup to the contest.

Weakley (16), Nate Strong (20) and Medupin (10) were the Eagles' leading scorers in the emotional victory. Strong was incredible, going 8-for-11 and 4-for-4 from deep to build his 20-point performance while playing 36 hard-nosed minutes for Holmquist. 

Medupin led Biola with seven rebounds as BU managed the win despite a 40-30 disadvantage on the boards.

Biola would beat Hope International 101-61 a week later to lock up the GSAC title, the first of two (15-16) Dr. Dave Holmquist would be able to win during the Eagles' tenure in the conference (1994-2017).

OC Register Announces GSAC Champs

Biola would end their championship year 17-3 in GSAC play. The 17 conference wins is the most in a single season for BU.

The Eagles made their sixth-straight appearance in the NAIA national tournament, entering Kansas City as the third-ranked team in the tournament field. Biola would cruise past Barber-Scotia College (N.C.) in a 75-46 opening round win, but then had to face the eventual national champions (Science & Arts (Okla.)) in round two and suffered a 92-79 loss to end the season at 29-5. 

Science & Arts averaged 94 points-per-game from round two through the championship game en route to its title.

For their efforts on the season, Nate Strong (2nd team), Kevin Augustine (3rd team) and Weakley (honorable mention) all earned NAIA All-American honors. 

Holmquist, of course, won GSAC Coach of the Year while Strong won GSAC Player of the Year and Augustine, Weakey and Foster all landed on the all-conference team. It was Foster's third all-GSAC honor and Strong's second.