The Buena Vista men's basketball team got its quest for its eighth Iowa Conference Tournament championship off to a strong start on Tuesday night by picking up a thrilling 85-82 home victory over Wartburg College.

The Beavers held a 10-point lead at 70-60 midway through the half before the Knights slowly began to chip away at that lead.  After trailing for nearly all of the half, Wartburg would eventually take a slim 78-77 lead with 2:13 remaining.

Junior Cole Darrow, who finished with a game-high 28 points, drilled a big three-point shot from the top of the key to give the Beavers the lead right back at 80-78 with 1:30 to go.

Wartburg had a chance to tie it with a pair of free-throw attempts with 44 seconds left, but the second attempt rimmed out, and the Beavers grabbed the rebounding, leading by one.

Darrow then drilled his second consecutive long range bucket for an 83-79 lead with 15 seconds left, but Wartburg qucikly came down the floor to hit a triple of its own to make it 83-82 with just eight seconds left.

Junior Alex Savage calmly sank a pair of free-throws following a Wartburg foul with five seconds left.  BVU then chose to foul the Knights before they could get a three-point attempt off, and after the Knights made the first free-throw, they intentionally missed the second and the ball was deflected out to the arc just in front of their bench, but the game-winning shot attempt was a little long, and the Beavers hung on for the win.

BVU led by as many as 11 in the first half and looked poised to maintain the lead going into halftime before Wartburg scored seven straight points in the final minute, including a shot at the buzzer from just inside half court, to make it a 46-43 halftime score.

The second half was close from the start with neither team able to mount much of a lead.

Darrow finished the game shooting 11-of-19 from the field, including 5-of-9 from downtown.  He also grabbed five rebounds and dished out four assists.  Senior Michael Kaufmann also had a hot hand from downtown, making 4-of-6 attempts to finish with 12 points.  He also tallied a game-high four steals, defensively.  Junior Nick Wuebker scored 10 points and hauled in seven rebounds.

Both teams shot 52.5 percent from the field with the Beavers going 14-of-27 from downtown.  They also out-rebounded the Knights, 34-29.

The win moves BVU to 14-12 on the year, and the team will now go on the road to face top-seed Central College on Thursday night at 7:00pm.