Men's Basketball | 12/3/2019 3:09:00 PM

STORM LAKE, Iowa (December 3, 2019) - The Buena Vista men's basketball has matched its best start of the year at 8-0, and the Beavers will now take that unblemished record into the start of play this week with a road game at No. 6 Nebraska Wesleyan on Wednesday night before returning back home to host Wartburg College on Saturday afternoon.

GAME DETAILS
Wednesday, December 4 | Snyder Arena | Lincoln, Neb. | 7:30 p.m.
Buena Vista (8-0, 0-0 A-R-C) at No. 6 Nebraska Wesleyan (7-1, 0-0 A-R-C) | WATCH | STATS

Saturday, December 7 | Siebens Fieldhouse | Storm Lake, Iowa | 4 p.m.
Wartburg (3-4, 0-0 A-R-C) at Buena Vista (8-0, 0-0 A-R-C)  | WATCH | STATS

LAST TIME OUT
The Beavers moved to 8-0 this past weekend by winning a pair of games during the 31st Annual Snyder Classic, hosted by Nebraska Wesleyan University.  It rolled to a 96-73 triumph over Willamette on Friday evening before pulling away late on Saturday afternoon for a 100-84 victory over the University of the Ozarks.  Dominic Sesma matched a career-high with seven three-point buckets on Saturday and was named to the All-Tournament Team along with Timothy Jeffries.

SERIES OUTLOOK
The Beavers have dropped three straight games to NWU and are just 6-15 all-time against the Prairie Wolves.  The team has had recent success in the series down in Lincoln.  It is 2-2 over the last four games played inside Snyder Arena with both losses coming by a combined nine points.  Its last win Lincoln was a 91-75 triumph two years ago after the Prairie Wolves had started 12-0 and before it went on to win the national title.  Against the Knights, BVU has dropped nine of the last 11 match-ups, including both games last season.  The two wins during that stretch have come inside of Siebens Fieldhouse where BVU has currently won six straight games overall, dating back to last season.

SCOUTING NEBRASKA WESLEYAN
The Prairie Wolves have now won three straight games since it suffered its only loss of the year - an 82-63 loss to then No. 15 St. Thomas during the Chicago Midway Classic.  The team tipped-off the year with a strong 78-56 win over then No. 12 St. John's (Minn.).  That was the only other game in which the Prairie Wolves have failed to score at least 80 points in a game.  The team hosted its own Snyder Classic this last weekend, winning both contests by an average margin of 21 points.  NWU is averaging better than 87 points per game this season and sits fourth in the A-R-C.  It's second behind BVU in scoring defense at 73.6ppg.  Nate Schimonitz leads the conference in scoring at 25.4ppg and is the only player in the league to have scored over 200 points thus far.  Jack Hiller is hauling in 6.5 rebounds per game which is sixth-best in the league, and he's also second in three-point percentage at 48 percent (33-of-68).

SCOUTING WARTBURG
The Knights are looking to get back on track as it starts conference play.  It began the year at 3-0 but has since dropped four straight games overall.  Junior guard Max Drahos-Smith has paced the team in the early going, averaging a team-high 12.1 points per contest and dishing out 27 assists.  Tyler Zumbach is grabbing a team-best 4.4 rebounds per game for a team that averages just over 35.0 per contest.  The Knights are third in the league in scoring defense, allowing only 74.0ppg while holding opponents to .417 shooting from the field.

ABOUT BUENA VISTA
The Beavers look to keep their early season momentum going into conference play where it went just 5-11 a season ago, missing out on the conference tournament for the first time ever.  They take the floor averaging 93.4 points per game, including a pair of 100-point contests, and rank fifth in Division III in margin of victory at +23.5.  Senior guard Timothy Jeffries is off to a torrid start, averaging 20.4ppg and ranking third in the A-R-C.  He's also been a constant at the free-throw line having already made 46 attempts which is 11 more than the next closest in the conference.  He had a streak of 34 straight makes earlier this season.  Aside from getting to the foul line an average of nearly 22 times per game, the Beavers have also been able to put up points via the long ball.  It is currently 14th in DIII with 11.9 three-point makes per contest and its 265 total attempts on the year is the sixth-most in the nation.  Four players rank in the top-13 of the league in three-point makes per game, led by junior Michael Demers, who's fourth at 2.6.  His 21 total makes are second-most.  Fellow junior Lincoln Rock is right behind at 2.0 with Dominic Sesma sitting at 1.6.  BVU is looking for its first-ever 9-0 start to a season and is going after its eighth straight victory in conference openers.