Sophomore Wes Nordquist turned in a career-high 29 points and matched a career-best with 15 rebounds to help lead the Buena Vista men's basketball team to a thrilling 73-69 non-conference victory over Denison College (Ohio) during the 2010 Land of Magic Classic on Tuesday night.

Nordquist finished the game shooting 12-of-19 from the field and 5-of-8 at the free-throw line.  Troy Ticknor and Kyle Hooks each followed with nine points, while juinior Doug Bissen chimed in with seven points and seven rebounds.

Denison led 21-13 midway through the opening half before BVU used a 15-6 run over the next four minutes to take its first lead of the game at 28-27 with 5:40 left in the opening period.  The Beavers then pushed the advantage to four at 34-30 before taking a slim 35-34 lead into the locker room.

A big 7-0 run to start the second half put the Beavers ontop by eight before building their largest lead of the night at 46-36 with just more than three minutes gone by. 

A pair of free-throws with just more than 10 minutes left gave Denison its first lead of the second half (50-49) and later built a six-point margin with just less than six minutes to play.

Denison continued to lead until Kyle Hooks made back-to-back buckets to give BVU a three-point lead with under a minute to play.  Michael Kaufmann then came up with a big steal with less than 20 seconds on the clock and Michael Elming then made 1-of-2 free-throws to increase the lead to four.

A pair of free-throws narrowed the deficit to just two before Ticknor secured the win with two free-throws of his own with five seconds left.

For the game, BVU shot 46 percent from the floor and out-rebounded Denison 45-31.

The Beavers improve to 4-7 overall and will close out its trip on Thursday with a match-up with St. Scholastica at 3:00pm ET.