Wildcats’ Heart Quarterfinals Victory Notches 200th Career Win for Dooley

BALDWIN CITY - Hosting a conference tournament game for the third straight year, the top-seeded Baker men's basketball team rolled to a 72-54 victory over No. 8 seed Missouri Valley here Wednesday night in the quarterfinals of the 2025 Heart Men's Basketball Conference Tournament, presented by WinWon.

With the win, Baker head coach Sean Dooley earned his 200th career victory and became the program's third head coach to reach the milestone, joining former coaches Rick Weaver (337) and Emil Liston (226). Dooley has gone 200-181 overall in his 13 seasons at BU with three straight 20-win campaigns, including this year's squad who marked the most wins in program history with 26 here in 2024-25.

After a fast start, the Wildcats went into halftime with a five-point lead before eventually wearing down MVC in the second half to come away with an 18-point victory. BU put on an impressive effort defensively, holding the Vikings to shoot a frigid 29.9 percent from the floor and a 2-for-18 line from three.

Meanwhile, the Wildcats had a routine night on their end, offensively, with Noah Rigatuso's 16 points leading a balanced scoring sheet. Quentin Harvey and Ahmed Mahgoub each scored 11 points apiece while Keynan Russell reached double figures as well with 10 points. Harvey came up a rebound short of a double-double with the big man pulling down nine boards.

The Wildcats opened up the quarterfinals matchup by hitting their first five shots from three-point range with Harvey jumpstarting the barrage and Mahgoub following with back-to-back treys to push BU out in front, 14-6

A three from Korey Jones made it a nine-point advantage before Russell and Harvey started to work inside and got a couple of layups to fall.

Then, a nice drive from Nick Whittick ended with the senior guard finding Rigatuso for an alley-oop slam to make it a 29-15 lead for BU with five minutes left in the first half.

After their offense struggled for most of the first half, including a 1-for-10 start from three, the Vikings got rolling in the final five minutes and closed out the half on an 11-2 run to cut Baker's lead to 31-26 at the intermission.

MVC had its second and final three of the game come on the first possession of the second half to make it a two-point ballgame before a trio of three-point plays from the Wildcats quickly pushed their lead back out to double digits.

The string started with Jones' second three of the night, followed by Rigatuso drawing a foul and the bucket on a tough layup and then Harvey garnishing the run with another three to give Baker a 42-32 cushion.

Rigatuso converted another and-one opportunity, while Mahgoub and Kaimen Lennox each connected on shots from downtown as the Wildcats started to run away with it midway through the second half.

Russell scored on back-to-back layups off of a couple of great passes from Rigatuso and Cason Richardson.

With less than three minutes left to play, Rigatuso tallied one last three-point play as the Wildcats closed out the tournament-opening win on a final score of 72-54.

The victory marked the third straight win in the Heart Quarterfinals for BU with all of them coming at home. The Wildcats came out on top of a double overtime thriller over MidAmerica Nazarene in 2022-23 and eeked out another close win last year in an 87-85 victory against Park.

Baker moves on to the Heart Semifinals where they will square off against No. 4 seed MNU on Saturday, March 1 at 7 p.m. in the Collins Center. The Wildcats swept the Pioneers in the regular season series with double-digit victories both on the road (84-72) and at home (69-55).

#BakerBuildsChampions