The Buena Vista men's basketball team will enter next weekend's Iowa Conference Tournament with consecutive wins under its belt after picking up a strong 99-71 home victory over Simpson College on Saturday afternoon.

Junior Cole Darrow led all scorers with 26 points, on 8-of-19 shooting, and went over 900 career points in the process.  He also added nine rebounds and dished out two assists.  Nick Wuebker converted 7-of-11 field goal attempts and followed with 15 points and nine rebounds, while Tyler Kastantin chipped in with 12 points and four boards.

Brett Heitkamp had a stellar performance off the bench for BVU, turning in 14 points and grabbing nine rebounds.

Michael Kaufmann, Alex Savage, and Nick Clark all dished out five assists, as BVU shot 46.6 percent overall, while also making 25-of-32 free-throw attempts.

Defensively, the team forced just 10 turnovers, but held a commanding edge on the glass by outrebounding the Storm, 57-25.

Simpson held an 8-4 lead in the opening minutes, but Darrow scored points during the Beavers' 7-0 run that saw them go in front 11-8.  Back-to-back buckets from Heitkamp pushed the lead to 15-10.

Simpson stayed as close as 21-19 midway through the half, but six straight points by BVU made it a 27-19 lead with 8:25 left in the opening half.  Kastantin drilled a three-pointer later in the half which gave the Beavers a 34-23 lead, and BVU would go onto take a 47-39 lead into the half.

The second half was virtually all BVU.  It was still a nine-point game at 59-50 with five minutes gone by, but a bucket by Heitkamp and another by junior Grady Gallagher pushed it to 63-50 with 13:27 left.

Senior Conner Grupe, who was one of three seniors recognized prior to the game, then sank two free-throws and followed with a layup to make it a 69-54 advantage before back-to-back buckets from Wuebker gave BVU a 73-54 cushion.

Darrow later hit a three-pointer to push the margin up to 22 at 82-60 with 8:00 remaining, as the Beavers were able to hold the Storm (4-21, 2-12 IIAC) to only 11 points the rest of the way.

BVU improves to 13-12 overall (8-6 IIAC) and will be the fourth-seed in next week's Iowa Confernece Tournament.  The Beavers will host #5 Wartburg College on Tuesday night, February 25, at 7:00pm.  BVU won both meetings during the regular season, including a 79-67 triumph inside of Siebens Fieldhouse back on January 22.