No. 1 Baker Edges No. 4 MNU, 70-67 to Advance to Second Straight Heart Title Game

BALDWIN CITY - Overcoming some offensive woes, the top-seeded Baker men's basketball team slipped past No. 4 MidAmerica Nazarene, 70-67 in a semifinal nail-biter here Saturday night in the Collins Center to secure the Wildcats' second straight trip to the Heart of America Conference Tournament Championship game.

The Wildcats will turn around and host No. 2 Graceland in the Heart Championship on Tuesday, March 4 after the Yellowjackets defeated No. 3 Peru State, 68-61 earlier today.

Despite making only one of its first nine shots from three in the first half, BU came through with some clutch shots down the stretch in the second and closed out the game with an emphatic 21-8 run to knock off a Pioneers squad that made 10 threes in the contest.

Kaimen Lennox provided the spark offensively for the Wildcats, scoring a team-high 19 points. Quentin Harvey (15) and Noah Rigatuso (13) both reached double figures with Harvey going 7-for-8 at the free throw line and Rigatuso tallying 10 rebounds for his second double-double of the last three games.

With Baker coming out on top of a low-scoring affair (69-55) between the two teams a couple of weeks ago, tonight's matchup started off with both sides struggling to score early on. A runout layup from Harvey registered the first points of the game three minutes in and MNU didn't make its first field goal until the 13:24 mark.

Lennox knocked down one of BU's two 3-pointers of the first half to make it a two-point advantage for the hosts midway through the opening frame. The Pioneers started to heat up from three and went on a 12-4 run to build a 23-16 lead with five minutes left in the half.

Harvey and Rigatuso each got a jumper to fall before Ahmed Mahgoub swished the second BU trey to pull the 'Cats within two. A three-point play from Harvey made it a one-point ballgame until MNU pushed it back out to five with just over a minute left.

After four straight free throws from him and Harvey, Lennox turned a steal into a nice left-handed layup to give Baker its first lead in almost 10 minutes, but the Pioneers hit a mid-range jumper to take a slight 33-32 lead into halftime.

Baker's offensive struggles reappeared to start the second half with BU going scoreless through the first six minutes until a jumper from Nick Whittick snapped the drought

Trailing by seven, the Wildcats used a string of points from Lennox and Rigatuso to tie the game, while holding MNU scoreless during that stretch to bring the game to a 41-41 tie. The Pioneers hit a couple of threes to keep a small lead before a layup by Lennox pushed BU in front for the first time in the second half.

Keynan Russell came up with some big rebounds for the Wildcats, including an offensive stick-back that kickstarted the huge closing run. Mahgoub flushed home a runaway jam and came right back down on the next possession and buried one from deep to give Baker a 56-49 lead with 5:15 left to play.

A 3-pointer from MNU trimmed the BU lead to five points, but Korey Jones nailed one from the corner to give the Wildcats some breathing room. Another three-point play from Harvey pushed the lead out to double digits with over two minutes remaining.

The Pioneers continued to fight though and used back-to-back threes to make it a three-point ballgame with :27 seconds left. Rigatuso, Mahgoub and Harvey all made a free throw in the closing seconds and the Wildcats survived a last-second scare to come away with the semifinal victory, 70-67.

With the victory tonight, Baker earned its third straight win over rival MNU after sweeping the regular-season series. Overall, BU has won eight consecutive games ever since its only setbacks of the conference season with back-to-back losses four weeks ago.

After hosting their first-ever championship game last year, the Wildcats return to the Heart title game where they came up short in the 2024 matchup, falling to Peru State, 63-59 in Collins.

This time around, they will face a Yellowjackets squad that they have handed three straight last-second losses to, beginning with Ty Henry's buzzer-beater in last year's Heart Semifinal game.

BU swept the regular-season series over GU this year with a game-winner from Russell in the first matchup back in January (65-64) and then an overtime victory (86-84) a couple of weeks ago in Lamoni, Iowa where the Wildcats clinched the Heart regular-season championship.

Tuesday's Heart Championship game is set for a 7 p.m. tipoff inside the Collins Center.

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