Tanner Hoops | Staff Writer
The Buena Vista University (BVU) men’s basketball team saw their season come to an end in the semifinals of the Iowa Conference tournament with a 93-88 overtime loss against Wartburg on Thursday, February 26.
The Beavers entered the tournament as heavy favorites to earn the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament given to the conference tournament champions after winning the conference regular season title a week earlier.
After a slow start, the Beavers exploded for 22 points in the final five minutes of the first half to take a 41-35 lead into the halftime break. However, the Knights led by 18th-year Head Coach and former Iowa Hawkeye standout Dick Peth, clawed their way back from an 8-point deficit with two minutes remaining in the second half to force overtime, where the Knights, a team that the Beavers had beaten twice earlier in the year, outscored BVU 9-4 in the extra stanza and left the home crowd stunned.
Junior point guard Nick Clark scored 27 points to lead four Beavers in double figures, while Kennedy Drey and Brett Heitkamp each scored 16 and Alex Savage had 13. Wartburg’s Jordan Cannon led all scorers with 32 points, while Nick Webber had 24. The Beavers connected on 37 of 88 shots from the field for 42% and knocked down 7 of 33 3-point shots for a frigid 21%. The Knights, meanwhile, were 35 of 75 from the field for 47%, connecting on 5 of 12 shots from 3-point territory for 42%.
“We had a group of seniors that really had great careers and it was a lot of fun coaching them, every single one of them. It was tough to see the guys in the locker-room afterwards,” Beaver Head Coach Brian Van Haaften said.
The Knights held a decisive edge at the free throw as well, hitting 18 of 22 foul shots, while the Beavers finished 7 of 14 in that category.
“Wish it didn’t end this way,” junior forward Jarod Juhl said. “Wouldn’t want to play with anyone else. Going to miss the seniors next year.”
The Beavers end the year with a record of 18-8, Iowa Conference regular season champions, and will graduate seven seniors.
Drey, a sophomore post from Schaller, Iowa, gave the Beavers a first-team all-Iowa Conference selection and finished the season averaging 14.9 points per game and 11.4 rebounds per game, one of only three players in the conference to average a double-double. Cole Darrow, a first-team selection a season ago, earned second-team all-conference honors this season. Darrow led the Beavers in scoring and ranked fifth in the conference at 15.4 points per game. He is joined on second-team by junior guard Clark, who finished the season averaging 14.1 points per game and was ranked second in the conference in 3-point shots made at 35. Van Haaften was also tabbed Iowa Conference coach of the year for the seventh time in his career.
Photo by Krystal Schulte
