WAVERLY, Iowa (January 23, 2021) - Senior Michael Demers scored all of his team-high 21 points in the second half to lead five Beavers in double figures, as the Buena Vista men's basketball team held off Wartburg College (1-3, 0-1 A-R-C) 82-78 inside Levick Arena.

BVU built a 41-28 halftime cushion, but the Knights came out of the locker room on fire and quickly erased that deficit to take a 54-53 lead midway through.  Neither team was able to go on much of a run the final nine minutes in a game that saw eight ties and 11 lead changes.  BVU led 79-73 with 38 seconds left before Wartburg made things interesting down the stretch.  They knocked down one of their eight long range buckets and then picked up a steal off the inbounds and turned that into a layup to cut it to a 79-78 contest with 14.7 seconds to go.

Senior Garrett Sittner went to the charity stripe and connected on 1-of-2 attempts for BVU to push the margin to 80-78 with 11 seconds left.  Wartburg came right back down the court but couldn't get its runner off the glass to go as senior Michael Demers secured the rebound and was quickly fouled with 1.6 seconds left.  He came down and made the first attempt before calmly sinking the second after a Wartburg timeout to secure the team's four-point victory.

Demers was held scoreless in the first half before finding the groove over the final 20 minutes.  He finished the game making 3-of-10 from long range and 4-of-4 at the free-throw line.  It's his fifth career 20-point outing and the 22nd time he's connected on at least three makes from downtown.  Junior Jake Thompson followed up with a career-high 16 points on 7-of-12 shooting and also dished out three assists.  Senior Brendan Gary came off the bench and added 14 points, seven rebounds and three steals while freshman Zane Neubaum had 10 points and three steals in his collegiate debut.

The Beavers made good on nearly 48 percent of their attempts from the field in the contest and made 10-of-33 from long distance en route to their third straight triumph over the Knights.  They also made 16 shots at the charity stripe while Wartburg attempted only 13.  The Knights were led by Keegan John's game-high 23 points and finished the game at 48.4 percent shooting from the field.

Buena Vista is 1-0 overall and 1-0 in conference play.  It will be the only time the two teams will square-off this season with the adjusted schedue format that has each conference team facing each other only one time this season.  BVU will return to the court on Tuesday night for a non-conference road contest at Benedictine University (Ill.).  Tip-off inside of the Dan and Ada Rice Center at Lisle, Ill., is scheduled for 5:30 p.m.