No. 10 Baker Falls to No. 15 Evangel in NAIA Second Round

WAXAHACHIE, Texas - After earning the program's first national tournament win on Friday, No. 10 Baker fell to No. 15 Evangel, 90-68 in the 2024 NAIA Men's Basketball National Championship Second Round, presented by Ballogy, on Saturday in Waxahachie, Texas, bringing the Wildcats' 2023-24 season to a close.

The Wildcats got a pair of 20-point outings from Quentin Harvey (26) and Noah Rigatuso (20) with Harvey going off for 19 points in the first half, while Rigatuso followed suit from his first round performance with a solid second half on Saturday as well, scoring 13 points in the final 20 minutes.

BU struggled to keep up with a Valor team that shot over 50 percent from the floor (30-for-57) and went 24-for-30 from the free-throw line to pull away late and advance to the round of 16 of the NAIA Tournament.

After missing their first three shots from deep, Ty Henry sank a three for the Wildcats to cut into a 10-2 start for the Valor and Harvey followed with a triple of his own on the next possession. Henry found Rigatuso underneath for a nice layup a little later, putting BU up by one at 15-14.

Evangel reclaimed the lead with a three-point play but a dunk by Rigatuso would tie things back up at 19-all with just under 10 minutes remaining in the first half.

With EU pushing its advantage out to a seven-point lead, Harvey posted a strong finish to the half, hitting another three to get the 'Cats within one before taking the lead on a layup to make it 32-31 with 3:23 left in the half.

Evangel closed out the half with a 9-3 run to take a five-point cushion into halftime as back-to-back last second 3-pointers fell short from BU to bring the first half to an end with EU leading, 40-35.

In the second half, the Valor stormed out with an 11-4 run to take the game's first double-digit lead and spark a quick BU timeout. Rigatuso scored five straight points and Harvey drained his third three of the night to pull Baker within six points.

After a Nick Whittick free throw made it a three-point ballgame, Evangel started to pull away again with a devastating 19-4 run that saw them take a 72-54 lead with just over seven minutes left in the game.

The Wildcats continued to fight to the end though with Rigatuso and Harvey combining for a couple of quick layups, but the Valor would keep things at a double-digit distance for the rest of the way as they came away with a 90-68 victory to win the postseason battle of the former conference foes.

Averaging 80 points per game during the regular season, the Wildcats' production took a slight dip during the conference and national tournaments after they were held to under 75 points in five of their final seven games. BU scored at least 75 points in 22 of its 28 regular-season games.

After going 22-9 and reaching the postseason last year, Baker posted its second straight 20-win season (23-10) in 2023-24 and secured back-to-back trips to the NAIA Tournament for the first time in program history. The Wildcats also earned their first-ever victory in the national tournament with a 74-71 win over No. 7 SAGU in the first round.

Baker marked the program's most conference wins in a season after going 18-6 in Heart play to finish as the regular-season runner-up, the Wildcats' highest finish in the conference standings since 1989. BU played in and hosted a Heart Championship game as another first-time milestone for the program. 

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