Exhibitions don't count in the standings, but they proved to be helpful to Oklahoma Baptist Saturday night in their 59-54 victory over Biola in the NAIA quarterfinals.

OBU was down 20 to Southeastern Oklahoma State in a November exhibition before winning 106-101. The Bison coaches and players drew on that experience in coming from 16 points down in the second half for the victory.

"We've grown from the exhibition game," said OBU coach Doug Tolin. "We learned a lot from those experiences."

No one took the message to heart more than A.J. Hawkins.

"Coach told us we need someone to step up," Hawkins said. "I'm a senior. This is it, so I knew I had to get it done."

In fact, it was the second deficit of 15 or more points the Bison recovered from for the second night in a row, having trailed Texas Wesleyan 20-5 in the first half Friday.

The Eagles went on a 10-0 run to take a 23-15 lead and closed out the half with a furious 6-0 run to lead 31-17 at the half, holding the Bison to a season first-half low in scoring.

"We started okay but the end of the first half was just awful," Tolin said. "You have to give a lot of the credit to Biola. I don't think we moved the ball quickly enough and there were a lot of late shot clock possessions and you can't do that against a good defensive team like Biola. There's no room for error."

The rally didn't come instantly. Biola led 41-25 with 13:55 left in the game, but then Kevin Swinton scored on an offensive rebound, A.J. Hawkins hit a three-pointer and Nate Brumfield got a break-away dunk to make it 41-32 with 11:55 to go.

Biola got the lead back out to 11 before Hawkins hit another three. Down 47-40, Swinton and Garrett Steinmetz scored to make it a two-point game.

After a Rocky Hamilton basket, Steinmetz drilled a three-pointer and Nate Brumfield scored inside - both on feeds from Hawkins - and OBU tied the score 49-49.

"A.J. made a lot of big plays for us for a long stretch in the second half," Tolin said. "He made some big shots and he also got the ball outside to Garrett for that big three in front of our bench and tipped a bad pass to Nate for a basket."

Marlon King made a three-point play to give Biola a 52-49 lead, but Brumfield scored inside and Tim Bowman, Swinton and Hawkins all hit both ends of bonus free throws in an 8-0 run for a 57-52 lead with 58.7 seconds left.

Biola missed a three-pointer and OBU got the rebound and Bowman iced the game with two free throws with 6.8 seconds to play.

Hawkins led OBU with 20 points, followed by Steinmetz with 12, Brumfield with 11 and Swinton with 10.

The Bison out-rebounded Biola 36-23. The Eagles had not been out-rebounded by more than eight all season long.

"The out-rebounded us by 13 in the game and that was the difference in the game," said Biola coach Dr. Dave Holmquist. "We couldn't keep them off the boards when we needed to."

Now 31-3, the Bison will play the Southern Nazarene-Robert Morris winner Monday in the semifinals at 8 p.m.

The other semifinal has Southern Polytechnic State and Azusa Pacific matched up Monday at 6 p.m.