The Buccaneer men won their fourth consecutive contest with a thrilling 73-70 win over Illinois College Saturday afternoon. 

The game had the fans on the edge of their seat from the get-go. Beloit College took an early five-point lead less than three minutes in before the Blue Boys opened up a 19-6 run that gave IC the biggest lead of the half, 21-13, with 9:20 on the clock. That ended up being the largest lead for either side in the game. Tristan Shoup halted the run with back-to-back layups followed by a Michael Polakoski drive and layin to cut the lead to two. Eventually, the Bucs regained the advantage as Shoup found Mylan Walters for the triple to make it 30-28 with 3:45 to go in the first half. An IC jumper knotted the game at 30-30 but Mason Jones scored five of the last seven points of the half to send Beloit into the lockerroom with a three-point lead, 35-32. 

The Bucs were outrebounded 19-12 in the first 20 minutes but outscored the Blue Boys 8-0 on points off turnovers. Shooting statistics were as close as the score would suggest. 

The second half was even across the board which led to a thrilling finish in Flood Arena. Early in the period, Beloit put together a 7-0 run bolstered by five points from Polakoski to take their biggest lead of the game, 44-37, with 16:35 remaining. Illinois College cut the lead down to two and kept it below five until under the 10 minute mark. With the scoreboard reading 54-52 in favor of the Bucs, Andrew Walters hit a jumper and then jumped a passing lane on the defensive end for the steal. With a free lane to the basketball, Walters elevated and slammed it home for the two-handed dunk to give Beloit a 58-52 lead and all of the momentum with nine minutes to play. 

The Blue Boys would close the gap and pull to within one on a three-pointer with three-and-a-half to go but Beloit still held the momentum. Shoup nailed a jumper and then Polakoski knocked down a three, both off assists from Andrew Walters, to push the lead back to six with just over a minute left. From that point, the Bucs got it done from the free throw line as Darin Empereur hit two and Polakoski sealed it dropping in three of four from the charity stripe in the final 30 seconds. 

Illinois College had an 18-6 advantage on second chance points but the Bucs canceled that out with a 16-4 sway in points off turnovers in the game. 

Shoup tallied a game-high 18 points adding a team-high seven rebounds. Polakoski added 15 points while Andrew Walters posted 14 points on 6-8 from the field adding three steals in the contest. Empereur also registered double digits with 11 points. 

Beloit is now tied with Grinnell for fifth place in the league with six games remaining including four against teams ranked among the top five in the league. The Bucs will head to Grinnell for their first meeting with the Pioneers this season Wednesday before returning to Flood Arena to host Lake Forest College Saturday. Then it's back-to-back road games at St. Norbert and Knox followed by two final games at home against Grinnell and Cornell.