No. 11 Baker Posts Perfect Home Record with Senior Day Victory over Statesmen

BALDWIN CITY - Winning all 13 of their home regular-season games, No. 11 Baker closed out a flawless Collins Center record with a 78-68 victory over William Penn here Saturday in the final game of the regular season.

Prior to the game, the Wildcats honored a whopping 10 seniors for their dedication and contribution to the BU men's basketball program. Those seniors included, Max Black, Tommy Faseru, Quentin Harvey, Korey Jones, Kaimen Lennox, Ahmed Mahgoub, Noah Rigatuso, Keynan Russell, Javin Shaw and Nick Whittick.

After a high-scoring first half that saw the Statesmen carry a slight, 46-43 advantage into halftime, BU came out and outscored WPU, 35-22 in the second half to earn its 20th win by a double-digit margin this season.

Rigatuso put on an impressive performance in his final regular-season outing in Collins, posting his third double-double of the season with 22 points and a season-high 15 rebounds. Three other Wildcats finished in double figures as well with Harvey scoring 16 points, followed by Jones (13) and Russell (11).

Each side shot over 20 free throws in the game with WPU (17-for-23) shooting at a slightly better rate than BU (14-for-21).

Rigatuso went to work right away for the 'Cats, draining a game-opening three before piling up a total of 13 points in the first eight minutes of the contest. Harvey and Mahgoub each knocked down threes to help fuel BU's early surge.

After Baker took an initial lead, the Statesmen responded by reeling off a 13-1 run to swing a double-digit lead in their favor with less than nine minutes left in the first half. Layups from Lennox and Russell trimmed the deficit for BU before Harvey tacked on six points to push them back in front at 35-33.

Cason Richardson buried a three to keep the Wildcats out in front, but a three from WPU with 22 seconds left settled the first-half score in the visitors' favor at 46-43.

With the near 90-point total in the first half, things got a bit sluggish for both teams in the second half after a breakaway dunk from Jones gave Baker a three-point lead. Threes from Jones and Mahgoub canceled out a set of treys from WPU and a layup from Russell made it a 57-54 lead for BU with 14 minutes left in the game.

From there, a WPU jumper was the only field goal for either squad over the next four minutes until a Mahgoub three looked to snap the cold stretch for BU. Despite the offense sputtering, the Wildcats made the most of a nearly six-minute scoring drought from the Statesmen with Jones sinking another three to make it a 68-57 lead for BU.

Jones followed with a three-point play the hard way as Baker kept a late WPU rally from gaining too much steam. Russell and Rigatuso chipped in the final buckets to seal a 78-68 victory for BU.

After clinching their first conference championship in 36 years, the Wildcats finished off the 2024-25 season with an incredible 25-3 overall record while going 22-2 in Heart play with their only setbacks of the conference season coming in back-to-back road losses at the end of January. Both win marks stand as the most in program history and serve as the culmination of a phenomenal three-year stretch that has seen head coach Sean Dooley's Wildcats win over 20 games and earn an NAIA postseason berth in three straight seasons. 

As the top seed, Baker will host the No. 8 seed Missouri Valley in the quarterfinals of the 2025 Heart Men's Basketball Conference Tournament, presented by WinWon, on Wednesday, February 26 at 7 p.m. in the Collins Center. A live stream of the quarterfinal matchup will be available on the Heart Conference Network and live stats can be found at BakerWildcats.com.

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