The Benedictine University men's basketball season is winding down and heading into the home stretch of the season. BenU has four regular season games remaining, and three of them will come this week. The Eagles will play the last scheduled road game of the season at Dominican on Tuesday at 7:00 p.m., take on Edgewood at home on Thursday at 7:00 p.m., then welcome Lakeland to the Dan and Ada Rice Center on Saturday at 2:00 p.m.

Benedictine (10-11, 8-8) currently sits in a tie for sixth place in the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference standings after splitting two games over the past week against some of the NACC's best teams. The Eagles defeated rival and fourth-place Aurora for the first time in two seasons on Wednesday night by a score of 79-69 as a 21 point, nine rebound performance from freshman guard Michael Blaszczyk (12.8p, 5.7r) led the way. On Saturday, the team fell in overtime at second-place MSOE 80-74 despite leading for a large part of the contest.

The key to BenU's strong play was rebounding, as the team outrebounded the competition 83-51 over the two game span and recorded 36 offensive rebounds. Benedictine has now won the rebounding battle in five out of the last six games.

The Eagles will take on a Dominican (4-18, 3-14) team on Tuesday night that will be playing for its postseason life. Since the tenth-place Stars are three games behind eighth-place Wisconsin Lutheran for the final conference tournament spot, a loss by Dominican or win by Wisconsin Lutheran against Edgewood on Tuesday will knock them out of postseason contention. It is a bit of a surprise, as the Stars advanced to the conference's semifinals last season and returned much of the same group for 2013-2014.

Back on January 16, the Eagles defeated Dominican 68-54 at the Dan and Ada Rice Center behind 17 points from Blaszczyk, 15 points and 10 rebounds from junior post player Tim McGinty (16.6p, 6.6r), and 49-32 advantage on the glass. Since the loss to BenU, Dominican has defeated non-conference opponent Maranatha at home and won a road match at Edgewood. The team is currently on a four-game losing streak.

Benedictine will return home on Thursday to face Edgewood (10-11, 8-8) in a rescheduled game from February 1. It figures to be one of the biggest games of the season for both squads, as BenU and Edgewood find themselves in a tie for sixth place in the NACC and just half a game behind fifth-place Concordia-Wisconsin. However, both teams have been trending in opposite directions. Benedictine has won five out of the last seven games, while Edgewood snapped a five-game losing streak on Saturday with a win over Rockford.

This will be the second "Battle of the Eagles" this season, as both teams met to open conference play back on November 30 in Madison, Wisconsin. Edgewood edged BenU 76-73 in that matchup, as Blaszczyk and Michael Woolf (11.1p, 3.8r) missed three-point shots on BenU's final possession. McGinty led Benedictine with 23 points.

The Eagles will close out the week on Saturday by taking on Lakeland (16-5, 12-4) on Hall of Fame and Senior day. Lakeland figures to be a stiff test for BenU, as the Muskies sit at third-place in the conference and are just 1.5 games behind first-place Marian. The Muskies win on offense, boasting the NACC's top offense (85.5p) and the conference's leading scorer in Justin Ward (22.5p).

Back on December 14, an undermanned Eagles team fell at Lakeland 98-84. The Eagles, who started five guards, were unable to slow down a Muskies offense that shot 52.5% from the field. Blaszczyk led the Eagles with 27 points, a career-high.