Benedictine University's men's basketball team is headed to the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference Tournament for the fifth straight season and for the eighth time in the nine-year existence of the conference. On Saturday, the second-seeded Eagles will take on Wisconsin Lutheran College at 2:00 p.m. in the Dan and Ada Rice Center.
 
The 2014-15 season has been one of the finest in Head Coach Keith Bunkenburg's 20-year tenure. The team's 15 conference wins is the most for BenU in nine NACC seasons, and the 17-8 record is the program's best since a 21-8 finish, NACC Tournament Championship, and NCAA Division III Tournament appearance in 2010-11.
 
Benedictine opened the 2014-15 season in convincing fashion, defeating fourth-ranked Illinois Wesleyan University at home 61-60 to set the tone for the remaining 24 games. The Eagles remained consistent all season long, as the team never recorded a losing streak longer than two games. BenU heads into tournament play on a season-high five-game winning streak.
 
Wisconsin Lutheran (14-11, 10-10) qualifies for the NACC Tournament for the second straight year and the sixth time in nine seasons. This year, the Warriors began the season up-and-down, starting the year 4-7. However, the Warriors have since posted two separate four-game win streaks, which includes the team's current stretch of play. WLC's latest four-game surge bumped the Warriors from the eighth to the seventh seed on the last day of the season, as the team defeated Milwaukee School of Engineering at home 83-74 on Wednesday night.
 
Benedictine and Wisconsin Lutheran met two times during the 2014-15 regular season. On January 7, the Eagles went into Milwaukee and won 73-57, holding the Warriors to just 32.8% shooting. Four different Eagles scored in double figures in the contest: Michael Blaszczyk (15), Tim Reamer (14), Adam Reynolds (11), and John Dodson (10). Blaszczyk also led BenU with 11 rebounds in the contest.
 
Two weeks later, the Eagles took down the Warriors in Lisle on Hall of Fame day. The Eagles controlled the game for much of the contest, as the Warriors led for just two minutes early in the first half before BenU pulled away and never looked back, winning 83-57. Blaszczyk scored 17 points in just 22 minutes to lead Benedictine. Kevin Rollins put together one of is best games of the season, scoring a season-high 15 points to go along with five rebounds, three assists, and two steals.
 
Despite the multiple NACC Tournament appearances for both schools, the Eagles and Warriors have never met in the conference's postseason tournament. BenU is 5-6 all-time in NACC Tournament games, while WLC is 2-5.
 
Live audio, video, and statistics will be available for Saturday's game at http://portal.stretchinternet.com/benu/. Mark Vasko will be on the call. As the tournament's second seed, a victory on Saturday would set up a Wednesday night Second Round match-up for the Eagles in Lisle against the winner of the third-seed Concordia University Wisconsin and sixth-seeded MSOE.