Hot Shooting Sends Men's Basketball to Conference Title

February 18, 2015

Three players finished with at least 20 points, as the Buena Vista men's basketball team shot better than 50 percent from the field on Wednesday night en route to a commanding 94-80 road victory over the University of Dubuque. The win secured the program's 12th overall Iowa Conference title and the ninth under head coach Brian Van Haaften.

It was a career night for sophomore forward Kennedy Drey, who poured in a career-best 26 points on 10-of-15 shooting. He made 3-of-5 from downtown and all three free-throw attempts. His 11 rebounds also gave him his ninth double-double of the year.

Junior guard Nick Clark matched Drey's 26 points which included a game-high five three-point buckets. He also grabbed five boards and dished out a pair of assists. Senior guard Cole Darrow chipped in with 23 points on 8-of-12 from the field, while adding seven rebounds. Senior Alex Savage dished out a game-high five assists, as BVU chalked up 16 on 32 made field goals.

As a unit, the Beavers made 50.8 percent of their shot attempts, including a sizzling 46 percent from beyond the arc (12-of-26). It also went to the free-throw line 23 times, making 18, compared to just 7-of-8 for Dubuque.

Defensively, BVU outrebounded the Spartans, 43-32, and held them to just 9-of-31 from downtown (29.0 percent).

Dubuque scored the game's first two points, but that was the last time the Spartans held a lead. BVU answered with seven straight points and was able to hold off any run that Dubuque tried to make. A three-pointer by Darrow gave the Beavers a 20-11 cushion with just five minutes gone by as BVU led by as many as 12 (33-21) in the first half. Dubuque did cut that lead down to 35-32 with seven minutes left in the half, but the Beavers managed to push the lead back to 10 before taking a 48-40 lead into the locker room.

Van Haaften's squad came out to score the first five points of the second half to take a 53-40 advantage. Dubuque, which came in trailing BVU by just one game in the standings, tried to keep things close, getting within 58-50, but senior Greg Sibenaller came off the bench for a layup and later added two free-throws to help put the team back up 64-50 with 13:39 left.

From there, BVU was able to maintain its double-digit lead as it went on to secure its second league title in the last three years and first outright championship since 2009.