Finally! Biola University basketball set to begin 2021 season

Head coach Alan Nakamura leads the women's basketball team practice in preparation for their game on Saturday at Biola University in La Mirada. (Photo by Keith Durflinger)

LA MIRADA – At long last, the first live sporting event on the campus of Biola University in 10 months.

The men’s and women’s basketball games will take place Saturday when the NCAA DII Eagles host Northwest Nazarene of Nampa, Idaho.

With the 2020-’21 season delayed 11 weeks due to Covid-19, the teams will take to the hardwood in Chase Gymnasium.

The men will tip off at 2 pm, followed by the women at 5 pm. No fans will be allowed at the game, but it will be live streamed for free on the Biola Athletics YouTube page.

Because of the concerns of Covid, both teams will only play a 13-game season, instead of the usual 30-plus games.

The 11-team conference will be broken up into three “pods.” The Hawaii pod features Hawai’i Pacific, Hawai’i Hilo and Chaminade, while the Northern pod consists of Academy of Art, Fresno Pacific, Holy Names and Dominican.

The SoCal pod is Biola, APU, Concordia and Point Loma. Each team will play the other three teams four times, to make up the 12-game conference schedule. Throughout the six-week season, the teams will play each opponent in a back-to-back format on Friday and Saturday.

At the conclusion of the regular season, the NCAA DII postseason is scheduled to start in the second week of March. NNU and Biola are both in the West Region.

The last games played by the Biola men’s and women’s teams were held 10 months ago in the PacWest Conference Championship Tournament.

The women lost a close semifinal game to DII No. 3 Hawaii Pacific, 68-65, while the men had a similar heartbreaker in the championship game, losing to Point Loma, 98-95 in overtime.

Madi Chang passes the ball during the women's basketball team practice in preparation for their game on Saturday at Biola University in La Mirada. (Photo by Keith Durflinger)

“I am very excited about our season,” sixth-year Biola Women’s coach, Alan Nakamura, said. “We have a wonderful group of high quality young women. They are intelligent, talented, coachable, and really care about each other.

“We are going to need to be ready. We are playing an NCAA-mandated reduced schedule, and every game on our schedule is against the best of the West Region.”

The Biola women are a young team with just one senior and six freshmen.

Senior captain Jazz Benn, a 6 ft. forward who averaged 10.7 PPG last year, will be counted on to lead the team along with the other two captains, redshirt junior guard/forward Danita Estorga (10.7 PPG) and junior guard Aysia Johnson (7.4 PPG).

Jazz Benn makes a shot during the women's basketball team practice in preparation for their game on Saturday at Biola University in La Mirada. (Photo by Keith Durflinger)

“They personify the high character athletes we are building our program with,” Nakamura said. “They are accomplished and are givers, on and off the court. Their desire is to do all they can for the benefit of the team. They are excellent representatives of all that is good about Biola.”

Nakamura also had high praise for Johnson and Estorga’s basketball skills as well.

“In addition to their leadership skills, they can also run the offense, attack off the bounce, knock down three’s, and grab tough rebounds,” he said.

Benn is a four-year starter, earning All-Conference recognition each year. In addition, she is President of Biola’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee.

“We’ve been working out way longer than a normal preseason,” Benn said. “It’s definitely going to be exciting. These are crazy circumstances right now.”

Benn was no doubt referring to having no fans in the gym for the games.

As for the opening game Saturday against Nazarene, Benn said, “Any game that we have, it will help us in the future. I think we’re really ready for it. I’m trying to use this time to have a good year.”

Nakamura added how valuable Benn will be to the team this year.

“She is a versatile six-foot player who can defend all five positions, is an excellent play-maker and can score at all three levels.”

A top returner out of Brea-Olinda High School is sophomore guard Stephanie Lee. Last season she earned the PacWest Freshman of the Year Award, earning five Freshman of the Week Awards along the way.

Abigail Laberge makes a shot during the women's basketball team practice in preparation for their game on Saturday at Biola University in La Mirada. (Photo by Keith Durflinger)

“In addition to her top level ability to score, Stephanie’s real strengths are her knowledge of the game, teachable spirit, and ability to make the right play for the team,” said Nakamura of the long-range specialist.

Lee led the team with a conference-leading 62 three pointers last season.

“Jazz and Stephanie are high quality young women,” Nakamura said.

Benn had high praise for the sophomore. “As a freshman (last year), she was a big part of our team.”

Lee, along with the rest of the team, is ready to start the season.

“Our whole team is very excited,” she said. “We’ve been preparing for this for six months.

“At first it was pretty different, wearing a mask and all. But wearing a mask has helped our conditioning. Our coaches have done a great job getting us ready for the season.”

Stephanie Lee makes a shot during the women's basketball team practice in preparation for their game on Saturday at Biola University in La Mirada. (Photo by Keith Durflinger)

As for her take on Nazarene, Lee added, “We just want to go out there and do the best we can. It’s going to be a lot different.

“We haven’t got a lot of chances to play anyone. We have just scrimmaged each other.”

Nazarene, a member of the Great Northwest Athletic Conference (GNAC), is playing an independent schedule this season due to only two remaining teams (Nazarene and St. Martin’s).

“They are a very strong program and have done very well in the West Region under fifth-year coach Steve Steele,” Nakamura said of the NNU Women’s team.

The NNU Women, who have won 73 games over the last three years, finished 22-7 last season and were ranked No. 5 in the NCAA DII West Region.

Biola Men are ready

Head coach Dave Holmquist leads the men's basketball team practice in preparation for their game on Saturday at Biola University in La Mirada. (Photo by Keith Durflinger)

The Biola men are chomping at the bit to get on the court for a real game after months of conditioning and limited practice.

“Everyone is excited to finally play a game after so many months of just practicing,” said longtime Biola coach Dave Holmquist..

In the PacWest championship tournament last March, the Eagles came up just short of their first title since entering DII. This year marks the second season of post-season eligibility for Biola.

After the three-point, OT loss in the title game, three of the six All-Tournament selections were Eagles and they all return this season.

Jesse Elrod looks to pass the ball during the men's basketball team practice in preparation for their game on Saturday at Biola University in La Mirada. (Photo by Keith Durflinger)

Senior guard Michael Bagatourian, who stands 6-7 and was All-Conference, senior guard Chris Rossow and 6-5 junior guard Alex Wright all are expected to lead the team in this shortened season.

“Chris played very well down the stretch, especially in the conference tournament,” Holmquist said.

In addition to those three starters, the other two starters return, 6-9 senior forward Jesse Elrod and junior guard Whitten Dominguez.

“With the five starters returning from last year, we are an experienced team,” Holmquist said. “Our biggest challenge relates to a lack of depth. For different reasons, we will only be suiting up nine players for the first few games. Because of these problems we haven’t done any five-on-five scrimmaging in practice since last March.”

It will be a wait and see for the coaching staff for the first game of the season.

Alex Wright drives the ball during the men's basketball team practice in preparation for their game on Saturday at Biola University in La Mirada. (Photo by Keith Durflinger)

“We have good players though, so if our conditioning can hold up in the early games, we should be very competitive,” Holmquist added. “I’m not sure what to expect in the first game since we haven’t competed five-on-five against anyone, including ourselves, in practice.”

Holmquist added two new freshmen to the 11-man squad, Maximo Milovich, a 6-7 forward from Argentina and Malvin Payero, a 6-0 guard from the Dominican Republic.

Also returning is Solomon Ruddell, a 7-0 junior forward and sixth man for the Eagles.

“Our team is full of strong players, who have great character and are enjoyable to coach,” Holmquist added. Saturday’s opponent, Northwest Nazarene (1-0), opened the season with a win over DI Portland State and was led by senior point guard Ezekiel Alley with a game-high 27 points.

The Nighthawks are on a west coast, four-game swing with additional games against Concordia and Point Loma this week. They finished 15-11 last season and were 12-8 in conference.

Michael Bagatourian looks to pass the ball during the men's basketball team practice in preparation for their game on Saturday at Biola University in La Mirada. (Photo by Keith Durflinger)

What they said:

Women’s coach Alan Nakamura: “We had to follow strict Covid guidelines throughout the Fall, and the players handled everything with humility and a strong work ethic. Thank the Lord that we have not had any positive Covid tests, and the team has done everything they can to get ready to compete.

“Following Covid guidelines from the state and county, we started the school year with semi-isolation in dorms, online classes and then we progressed to practicing outdoors only. We wore masks, kept our distance and couldn’t share or pass basketballs. We had the usual NCAA limit of eight hours per week in the pre-season.”

Jazz Benn, Sr. forward: “Everything was different, from housing to even having practices outside. After a couple of months, we finally got in the gym.

“(Coach) Alan reaches out to us every day, on and off the court. When I got recruited here, I was super welcomed and when I met coach, I knew I wanted to play here.”

Stephanie Lee, sophomore guard: “Coach is a great guy and cares so much about us. He leads us well.

“In our conference pod, we are playing some great teams and we’ll have to adjust after each game.”

Men’s coach, Dave Holmquist: “We’ve worked hard during the fall. We’re lacking some depth right now, but we have five character guys and good players. We’re trying to find out where we are, because we don’t have a gage on that right now. A lot of things about the team, we’ll learn this Saturday.

Alex Wright, junior guard: “I’m so excited. It’s game week. You have to just roll with the punches. I just want to be out there in a game. I look forward to be back in the game. I miss the game atmosphere. It’s been 10 months since we last played. We are going to attack every team. This year it’ll (schedule) be a little different. Getting the energy up for the second of the back-to-back in the double header format is crucial.

“We’d really like to come out on top in those games. We can’t take days off this year. We have one of the toughest pods in DII.

“As for Nazarene, we’d rather play a tough team (like NNU), who just beat a DI Portland St. team, than a lesser opponent. We won’t shy away from anything.”

Michael Bagatourian, senior guard: “I’m looking forward to our first game in 10 months. It’ll be a little strange (with no fans). My parents have gone to every game since I was a little kid. It will be strange for them. Nothing really changes. It’s still five-on-five.

“With this first game, we just want to make sure that everything that we’ve been working on these last couple of months before the season is important. The things that we’ve been talking about need to show up in the game.

“Hopefully all of the work that I’ve put in during the off season is going to come to fruition. It’s been tough with Covid. We haven’t been able to do everything we wanted to do, as far as live basketball goes. I’m just hoping that we go out there and our team plays together.”

Game notebook:

Women: Biola and NNU have played four times in their history, with the Nighthawks holding a 3-1 edge.

The last time the two teams met was two years ago, as the Biola women lost, 97-64. Biola defeated the Nighthawks in 2017, 67-64, with Benn the only remaining player on the current Eagles roster that faced NNU.

Nazarene’s coach Steele is a local product out of Troy High School, played soccer at Concordia and began his coaching career at Brea O’Linda (Girls basketball), Concordia and Seattle Pacific before taking the head job at NNU in 2016.

NNU, for the first time since 2000, won the regular season conference title and conference championship in 2018 and ’19, respectively.

Men: Biola and NNU have played five games in their history, with the Eagles winning the last three. The last game played was December 11, 1998, with the eagles winning a low-scoring affair, 42-41. Only nine Biola players will be able to play in the first game.

Road to 1,000 wins:

With the season finally getting underway Saturday, longtime coach Dave Holmquist is nearing a milestone that only four other NCAA Division I, II or III coaches have achieved: 1,000 career wins.

Holmquist is currently 992-406 overall and will become one of only five NCAA coaches with 1,000 or more career victories.

Holmquist will eventually join longtime Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski in the 1,000 win club, who has the most wins with 1,157 and is still active.

Only one of the other three coaches is active. Herb Magee of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia is second to Krzyzewski with 1,123.