Russell’s Game-Winner Completes Wildcats’ Late Comeback over Yellowjackets in Top-25 Showdown

BALDWIN CITY - Keynan Russell got a bucket to fall with three seconds left to finish off a late comeback for No. 12 Baker as the Wildcats came out on top, 65-64 over No. 25 Graceland in a battle atop the Heart standings here Thursday evening in the Collins Center.

After Ty Henry's historic game-winning shot in last year's Heart Semifinal game, it was Russell who played the hero in this one with a great pass from Noah Rigatuso setting him up right in front of the basket to complete a 14-5 run for BU in the final five minutes.

A clutch performance from Ahmed Mahgoub fueled the late surge for the Wildcats with the senior guard burying three 3-pointers in the final five minutes to finish with a team-high 15 points.

Henry continued to be a thorn in GU's side after scoring the first nine points of the game for BU and coming in right behind Mahgoub with 14 points. Kaimen Lennox had 12 points off the bench and came through with a big layup late to pull Baker within two.

With Henry's opening frenzy getting the Wildcats going, Lennox followed with another impressive stretch from a BU guard as he scored seven unanswered points to make it a 20-11 lead for Baker.

The Yellowjackets got within three with about six minutes left in the half, while the Wildcats hit a bit of a cold stretch with a bucket from Harvey with 5:49 left being one of just two field goals for BU for the rest of the half. Nick Whittick converted a three-point play before GU responded with a trey to bring the halftime score to 28-27 in favor of Baker.

Graceland came out of the intermission on fire, draining its first two threes of the half and adding another set of threes a little bit later to take a 41-32 lead just over two minutes into the frame.

After facing their largest deficit of the season at 44-32, buckets from Mahgoub and Russell kept Baker around the single-digit mark, but it wasn't until Rigatuso's layup with 5:29 left that pulled the 'Cats within eight at 57-49.

Trailing by eight with less than five minutes to go, Mahgoub connected on his first triple of the game to spark the comeback and Quentin Harvey added a free throw to keep it a five-point ballgame with 3:20 left.

With neither side able to score over the next two minutes, Mahgoub delivered two more devastating blows from deep with his second triple of the run bringing Baker within two, followed by his final one that made it 64-63 with 22 seconds left to play.

After two missed free throws from the Yellowjackets, a composed Wildcats squad immediately came right down and executed an excellent set with Rigatuso threading the needle to find Russell for the game-winning bucket.

With the result, the Wildcats earned their 10th straight win of the season with all of them coming in a perfect 10-0 start to the conference season for BU. It marked the second straight one-point victory for Baker against the Yellowjackets after they came out on top, 74-73 in the semifinals of the Heart Tournament last year.

Baker heads out for its first road trip of 2025 with a matchup at William Penn on Saturday, Jan. 4 at 4 p.m. in Oskaloosa, Iowa.

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