Spring Depth Chart Review--Or, Who Are You People

More than the offense, the defense is a whole new bunch of faces. And, given that the Falcons' consistent inability to get off the field last year contributed a great deal to the 5 loss season, I would suggest this isn't a bad thing. Now, you could see it two ways. Could it be a situation of getting worse? Yes. We hang our hopes on two things. First, that (as mentioned in the presser) Coach Lovett has a full spring and season to prep the D. Second, that the redshirt freshmen are as good as Coach Brandon alluded to last year.

D-Line:

Devon Parks is finishing our his stellar career at one end, and Diryal Briggs, who showed great talent is starting at the other end. The three next players are all redshirt freshmen (Jacob Hardwick, Thomas James and Trevor Frericks.)

In the middle, Brad Williams is returning. He's a good football player who is moving inside from end--I assume because we need help in the middle and have some ability at the end. R-So Nick Davis will start at NG (280 lbs), where he must have made coaches feel good enough to move Brandon Curtis across the ball. Brandon Mack (257lbs)--also moving in from end--is the back up here, and R-FR Brady Minturn backs Williams up.

Some things are tough to change overnight, and our undersized D-Line is one of them. Briggs, for example, is 216 pounds. This has vexed many Falcon fans over the years, and really hurts us when we play the NIU/UT teams, built on big O-lines mowing you over. The idea is to be quick, I understand, but it seems like we don't match up well with some teams. One thing seems clear to me--a team this small can't afford to tackle poorly.

Linebackers

A strength last year, but Teddy P graduated. We really, really need strong linebackers if the line is going to get pushed around sometimes. On the strong side, R-so Erique Dozier is projected to start. In the middle, R-Fr. Cody Basler is starting (moving ahead of John Haneline, who played some last year), and Terrel White (5-Sr) is starting on the weak side, backed up by R-So Scott Goodwin.

Until we see otherwise, this has to be considered a concern. White seems like a good player, but you wonder what kind of impact he makes on the weak side. Dozier is unproven, and Basler in the middle has not been seen in game conditions. He was scout team MVP twice toward the end of last year, and was on the Michigan Dream Team, so perhaps he's a player.


One other note. Nick Lawrence is listed as #3 in the middle. Nick is from Brighton, MI, where his mother is the Mayor, and he plead guilty to drug charges. Coach gave him a chance to prove himself, and he made his way onto the depth chart. (I believe he went without scholarship last year). He was highly recruited, and could be an impact player if he can get himself together.

Defensive backfield

Again, very young, but I believe of all the positons on the field, this is an emerging strength.

The most important news here is the Deaudre Perry is back in uniform. It appeared he was lost to us, but has re-emerged following a "medical" leave. I have no idea what that means, but I'm glad to have him back as FS. He's an R-Jr who has the ability to be an impact player (he ways as much as Diryal Briggs!). He's backed up by R-Fr Chris Wright. At the other ssafety is Loren Hargrove, also an R-Jr who began to make a real impact last year toward the end of the season. He's backed up by Calvin Wiley (R-FR again), a highly prized recruit.

At corner, we have two true Sophs--Antonio Smith and Kenny Lewis. Both got significant time last year. Smith is an impact player, and Lewis showed some great ability. I think that we are set with these guys for three seasons at CB. Probably the strongest point on the defense.

Their backups are 5-Sr Van Johnson, a great athlete who has bounced around as a backup QB and WR, and never really saw any serious time. The backup is r-fr Jerrett Sanderson, somebody nobody had ever heard of before. He just enrolled this spring, after a year in prep school. Seems to have been a productive player in HS (in NJ) and for him to jump right in to the mix more or less sight unseen says something.

Conclusion

I would love for Coach Lovett to bring this unit around and have them become the kind of defense we need to compete. And, given my comments on the offense (ie, we can't count on playstation numbers this year), its important. As of now, until I see otherwise, my guess is we're a year away on defense. Only three senior starters, so next year we could be dangerous.

Spring Football Is Here--Depth Chart released, Offense Review

The Falcons released their spring depth chart last week. Spring practice starts on Saturday.

There's actually a lot here to review, so I'm going to look at the offense first. However, there is one overriding theme....we are really, really young.

Let's look at the class distribution in the two deep only (both sides of the ball):

Seniors 10
Juniors 9
Soph. 13
Fr. 12

This is worth commenting on only in this respect. Falcon fans who are looking for an instant comeback to championship football from last year's 6-5 team are likely to be disappointed. I'm not saying they won't be OK, but a team this young, with this many players seeing action who never did before--its just unlikely we win our division.

If we do, by the way, we're in for a really sweet next three years, because this team loses almost no one to graduation.

Coach Brandon spent much of last year talking about the freshmen redshirting at the time, and saying that he was counting on them to resurrect the program. He also talked about a couple weak recruiting classes in the Urban transition period. I think a lot of us scoffed at that, but maybe we were hasty. I'm going to post on the veracity of the "lost recruiting class" another time.

In the meantime, suffice it to say this: he's putting his money where his mouth is. Redshirt freshmen are all over the first depth chart.

Now, let's look at the offense, starting at QB.

Of course, Anthony Turner is starting. Some believe that True Fr Anthony Glaud will end up in the mix when the season starts, but he's not here yet, so you can't tell. I've heard our coaches really like Freddie Barnes, and coach says there will be a competition this spring, but I expect AT to be the starter, even with this arrest problems.

Running Back

Dan Macon is back from his unconventional mid-career redshirt, and is backed up by Bobby Thomas and Chris Bullock. The first two have shown some ability and Bullock is highly regarded, but this trio has a long way to go to reach the production that Pope and Lane gave--and RB is vital to a spread offense, especially the runspread AT will run (as opposed to the throwspread that Omar ran).

WR

Again, major question marks at this position. There may be ability, but there are question marks. For example, our two deep has three WRs--Partridge, Parks and Ruiz, each of whom has shown ability, but hasn't had to play the Sharon/Sanders go-to roll. Plus, we often have five wides, and that means you're looking at guys who have missed shots in the past like Brandon Jones and Kenneth Brantley, or totally unproven players like Aaron Davis, Kollin Hancock and Rhett Magner. This position remains a concern...and more so due to the RB situation and the QB situation.

TE

Sean O'Drobinak is the starter, and I like him. We can make good use of him, he catches the ball and he gets open. His back up (Sheidler) is a total unknown, and Pete Winovich continues to move positions as he is back at TE--on the third string. The Jr. certainly has never looked as good as he did on signing day.

OLine

The Oline should be solid, and improved. On the left side, Jr. Drew Nystrom brings 304 pounds to AT's blind side, and Kory Lichtensteiger is an all-conference guard. John Lanning has promise at C, but its odd the Brandon Curtis was moved from NG to C if that was the case. On the right side, Derrick Markray (350 lbs) is at RG, and Kevin Huselman is a junior at RT. The line is strong and experienced all the way across. The next string is young, so we don't know what we have there, so hopefully we can remain healthy.

Simply put, there is no reason for the casual fan to think this team this year will have the high octane offense we have seen for the past five seasons. It might happen, but there is no reason to think it will. We're going to have to play better D than in the past, because we won't be able to just outscore people.

Brandon Presser...non-Turner portion

Coach did talk about some other things, based on the official transcript on the bgsu website.

What is the depth chart at QB right now?

"Freddie Barnes and Anthony Turner will compete this spring. Tony Hunter is a walk-on kid in the program that will be involved in the competition. Anthony Turner was a projected starter but he has to earn that spot. He will get some healthy competition from Freddie, Tony and the two young men that we signed who are coming in August. I am looking forward to it because any time you have some new faces it is exciting."

My note: I know they seem high on Freddie Barnes (he was twice scout team MVP, and its my impresion that kind of thing is pretty big). I believe AT will win the job, but I could be wrong. Either way, the competition will be good. My opinion is that AT is going to be an All-MAC QB when all is said and done.

Do you like your schedule next year?

"Yes. I think it is very challenging. I haven't seen it for sure yet. All I know is who we are playing, not necessarily when and where. Wisconsin is still there. We dropped Boise and are going to play them next year."

It is challenging. He doesn't mention OSU, or the extra road game, which can't have been a positive, although if its against Temple, that might be easier than playing against Boise at home. Suffice it to say this: with Wisconsin on the schedule, @ OSU, and @Toledo, and a road game against @Florida International (those long trips are always tough), this young team doesn't have it easy.

Are you expecting headaches in the spring due to the new starters?

"It's fun. Any time there is some uncertainty it creates a little bit of anxiety and anytime there is change it creates fear. I look at it as an exciting time. We can see the Sebo Center going up and it is fun watching the steel being placed and it is just a good time to be at Bowling Green."

OK.

As a coach, how much do you get out of spring practice?

"We will get a lot out of them this spring because there is so much uncertainty at the positions. Generally what you try to accomplish during spring football is if you have a veteran team coming back then you solidify a couple positions and you get to work with guys as far as schemes on both sides of the ball. This spring will be different. We have to learn to block and tackle. It is about going back to basics. With Omar Jacobs obviously we were further along at quarterback then the guys we have now because they do not have that kind of experience. Defensively we will have four returning starters so it is a very fundamentally orientated spring. The blocking and tackling is something we are going to work on and stress."

We have to learn to block and tackle. That's an accurate statement. Especially tackle. Last year's "veteran" team could have used the same thing.

What are some things that you dread?

"I would like to end spring football by playing somebody beside us. I am an advocate of that. That would be fun. By the end of spring ball the guys are a little feisty and want to wack somebody else and you have to fight through that a little bit. It is tough to practice without any football gear on. We practice three times in helmets."

Its an interesting idea. Why not have a closed scrimmage? They do it in basketball.

How much do you hammer home how your season ended?

"After Omar got hurt we lost a few games and then rallied. We beat Kent and Miami on the road and that was a huge win. We almost got it done against the Rockets. To get that game to double-overtime and have a chance to win, there is a lot of positives from that. But obviously the overall record of 6-5 was a disappointment. We talk about that because we see ourselves as being a championship caliber program and again we were a play away from being in the championship last season. There is a lot of positives and I don't dwell too much on the negatives aside from the fact that we want to be better than 6-5 but that team put themselves in a position to play for a championship and just fell a play short. I have had coaches all over the country who have seen that game say "I love the way your team played. They flew around the field. They hit and were aggressive." We just came up a bit short."

"I am telling this team this is a new time now. This is a new group of guys, a really new group of guys, and it is their time to shine. We have been working since January in our off-season winter conditioning. That has been very upbeat, positive and the kids have been focused that way. We are going into phase two, the second quarter we call it, with spring football and we are excited to crank it up tomorrow."

Most Falcon fans will think this underplays how this team should have performed last year, even without Omar, but as much as that feels good, you can't live in the past. What's done is done.

Do you remind them that two goals were not met last year?

"We have set the goals [the MAC Championship and playing in the post-season] here at Bowling Green and we are just going to strive to meet those. That is the standard we have here. We play for championships and want to play in bowl games."

I think everyone would agree with that. We're very young. If we can win the division this year, we're in for a great few years at BGSU.

What about the new facility?

"It is huge. It is definitely something that is needed. It will be a beautiful building. We have been sorely in need of a new facility and this will get us to even par with some of our competitors and it is great that Bob Sebo is stepping up like he is. We have a lot of donors that have stepped up. In fact a former player, Mike Weger just made a donation a few weeks ago. He is just one of many that are a part of this project. It is moving right along and we are excited to be in it in less than a year."

I highly doubt this building will do as much as people think it will. Not that it wasn't needed.

There has been some shifting on the depth chart in the offensive line and is Deaudre Perry back?

"For Drew Nystrom, he is on the left side where he will protect the quarterback, and he is the most experienced tackle that we have. That was a pretty obvious move. Brandon Curtis will be given a chance to play. I think he has a chance to compete to start on the offensive side of the ball. Deaudre is back from a medical condition that he had towards the end of last season. We continue to monitor him and make sure that he is ok and he will be participating in spring drills.

All interesting. Perry back is critical to a very young d-backfield. Lets hope he can last the season. Brandon Curtis moving from NG to C is odd---seems like we had some depth on the line, and lacked it on the D-line.

How important will it be for the defense to have Coach Lovett through the spring?

"It is huge. He has been around these kids through an entire season and this is his first spring. This will be an opportunity without so much pressure to get the defense ready. I know he is excited about that and I am too. John is a proven football coach with a great football mind. Hopefully these young guys will step up through these spring practices and in fall camp. We have time in fall camp to continue to develop our defense and we will continue to do that."

Well, this was the defense for the defense last year---that Coach Lovett didn't have enough time to work with the guys. As with everything, in the end you won't be able to hide from the results.

Dude....

Starting BG QB Anthony Turner and Transfer DB Ryan Patrick were arrested earlier this week for possession of marijuana, according to the BG News. (Patrick transferred here from Ball State, but played HS ball with AT).

Interesting to see how coach handles this. A basketball player in recent memory was reported to be tossed from the team for a similar offense. Still, its a minor misdemeanor....it would be easy to blow it out of proportion.

UPDATE: From Saturday's Blade:

BGSU coach Gregg Brandon released a statement yesterday saying he would handle discipline for Turner internally and planned to use the case as "an opportunity to teach not only Anthony, but our entire team that they are going to be held to a higher standard regarding their actions."

Update II: From Sentinel:

"Obviously, Anthony made a serious mistake when he received a citation for possession of marijuana. The discipline that I imposed will be handled by me internally. Anthony is still subject to additional sanctions from the school and the legal system."

"I believe it is important that I use this opportunity to teach not only Anthony, but our players. Division I athletes, tthey are held to a higher standard; and we all know that when we sign on the dotted line, that's part of the deal."

"Anthony is definitely sorry for his choice that he made. It was wrong. He's gong to begin the learning prrocess now and we're going to move on. It's a great opportunity for me to teach and educate and that's what I am above all, a teacher."

Finally, from AZZ poster who sounds authoratative, but who knows:

The current AT situation will be handled as follows: Ryan Patrick is being kicked off the team for Lying to coach Brandon. AT came clean and he is being suspended for the Wisconson game. However, he will also be brutalized in the weight room, and will have many early morning runs. Along with those punishments he will also lose the respect of many of the players on the team, which can be much harder on a player. Even though AT screwed up, if anything it could be a blessing after all. AT has been very soft this off-season he thinks everything will just be handed to him and he has it made. He hasnt looked very sharp in the passing drills and the other QB's are working much harder than him. Hopefully this experience will wake him up and he will figure it out. AT is a good kid, who just made a stupid decision. He has the raw talent to become another great QB at BG its just a matter of if he is willing to pay the price.

Skydome, er Rogers Centre...Host of Next MAC Bowl game?

Skydome, er Rogers Centre...
Originally uploaded by Pengwin.

More reliable than normal rumors on message boards say that the MAC should have a third bowl bid in the hopper next year. I believe these are reliable because they come from someone with a semi-journalistic bearing (Vandelay sports) and because they reflect things we have heard before from official sources. The word is, tie in with Big East in Toronto, see above.

There's also some talk of a fourth bowl, but that's a lot less likely.

This is great for the MAC. Within memory, we struggled to have one bowl bid--in fact, we spent a little time in the 70's without a bowl game. The MAC leadership has done a great job putting this together, and they deserve huge credit.

For the record, if BG makes the Toronto Bowl, we will go. We're not afraid of the cold, and Toronto is an awesome city.

Let's hope it pans out.

Note: Photo via Flickr, uploaded by Pengwin. Click on photo to go there.

Hoops Year In Review (Part II--the nation looks on in horror)

Usually, I just run our stuff by the MAC numbers, because it tells us enough to see how we ranked against our peers. But when I looked at our NCAA rankings, I was sufficiently shocked at what I saw that I wanted to start here.

Category	Rank	Actual	National Leader	Actual
Scoring Offense (326 ranked)	236	65.9	Long Beach St.	83.3
Scoring Defense (326 ranked)	236	71.4	Air Force	53.9
Scoring Margin (326 ranked)	281	-5.5	Texas	16.0
Field-Goal Percentage (326 ranked)	182	43.5	Florida	50.8
Field-Goal Percentage Defense (326 ranked)	265	45.7	Kansas	36.8
Three-Point Field Goals Per Game (326 ranked)	91	7.1	Troy	11.9
Three-Point Field-Goal Percentage (326 ranked)	46	38.1	Southern Utah	42.9
Free-Throw Percentage (326 ranked)	76	72.0	St. Joseph's	79.3
Rebound Margin (326 ranked)	312	-6.1	Connecticut	10.5
Assists Per Game (326 ranked)	144	13.7	Tex. A&M-Corp. Chris	19.6
Blocked Shots Per Game (326 ranked)	317	1.6	Connecticut	9.3
Steals Per Game (326 ranked)	198	6.7	Houston	12.1
Won-Lost Percentage (326 ranked)	285	30.0	George Washington	92.9
Turnovers Per Game (326 ranked)	276	16.5	Temple	7.7
Personal Fouls Per Game (326 ranked)	326	24.0	West Virginia	12.7

The litany of woe begins with the foul statistic. We all knew from watching that we fouled--a lot. And, let there be no doubt, we fouled and fouled again. In fact, no team in DI hoops fouled as much as we did. (The irony of the team with the fewest fouls in the nation shall pass without further comment). Not to pre-empt a future post, but our opponents made 591 FTs, against our 432. That's a difference of 159 free throws, or 5.5 points per game lost on the free throw line. Then go up and look at our scoring margin, and I think our work here is done, with the exception of a nod to the idea that these numbers make it hard to believe its the official's fault.

There's nothing else here that is quite so graphic, but there remain some startling stats. We are in the bottom 50 (or about the bottom 20%) in rebounding margin (-6.1), Turnovers, and scoring margin, and below 200 in scoring, defense, FG% defense, and blocked shots. Suffice it to say that on every conventional measure, we were a really bad DI team.

What were we good at? 3FG% (46th), FT% (76th), and 3s per game (91st). Those are fine things to be good at, but obviously not enough when you don't defend shots well, turn the ball over, foul a lot, and never rebound.

On the bright side, nobody should have any illusions that we were "this close" in 2006. In fact, as Coach said in his final post game, "we're not close."

Falcon Hoops Review Part I

--or, where I drank some bad kool aid and wrote down what I thought.

If you've read the DaVinci Code, you've read the part about the Opus Dei guy (The Albino) wrapping barbed wire around his thigh as a testament to his devotion to the cause. Consider that a metaphor for the 2005-06 Year in Review. Appropriate to the metaphor, I will start with my own predictions on what the season would look like, in all its painful glory. (Let he who has not sinned....)

Basically, I thought we would start off slowly and get better, and finish about .500. Instead, we started off slowly and did worse, and finished with our worst record in 20 years. The left hand column represents how we did...the right hand column represents what I thought was going to happen. Picks in red are ones I missed.

I got 18 right (missing 11), and that's without even knowing who the Bracket Buster opponent would be (although I would have picked us to beat Wright State at home).

Its all not too bad until you get to that little 4 of 5 run I saw at the end, and see it turned into 0-5. I only picked us to lose three times where we actually ended up winning--(Toledo, @Kent and @Virginia Tech), so 9 times I thought we would win and we lost (again, with four of those coming down the stretch). Finally, in full disclosure, two of the 18 right picks were picking us to beat a non-DI team, so that doesn't really count.

We'll dig into the gory details soon, but suffice it to say that we did not improve like a young team should, and we finished playing our worst basketball of the season, and two players have left after that. Ouch.

Thu	11/10/05	Western Carolina	Blacksburg, Virginia	L	W
Sat	11/12/05	Virginia Tech	Blacksburg, Virginia	W	L
Sun	11/13/05	Radford	Blacksburg, Virginia	L	L
Sat	11/19/05	Urbana	Bowling Green, Ohio	W	W
Wed	11/30/05	Oakland	Bowling Green, Ohio	L	W
Sat	12/03/05	Bradley	Peoria, Ill.	L	L
Sat	12/10/05	Arkansas-Little Rock	Little Rock, Arkansas	L	L
Sat	12/17/05	Florida State	Mobile, Alabama	L	L
Mon	12/19/05	Troy	Troy, Alabama	W	W
Thu	12/29/05	Notre Dame (OH)	Bowling Green, Ohio	W	W
Wed	01/04/06	Central Michigan	Bowling Green, Ohio	W	W
Sat	01/07/06	Western Michigan	Kalamazoo, Michigan	L	L
Wed	01/11/06	Northern Illinois	Bowling Green, Ohio	L	L
Sun	01/15/06	Toledo	Bowling Green, Ohio	W	L
Wed	01/18/06	Eastern Michigan	Ypsilanti, Michigan	W	W
Sat	01/21/06	Ball State	Muncie, Indiana	L	L
Tue	01/24/06	Buffalo	Bowling Green, Ohio	L	W
Thu	01/26/06	Kent State	Kent, Ohio	W	L
Sun	01/29/06	Akron	Bowling Green, Ohio	L	W
Wed	02/01/06	Miami (Oh)	Oxford, Ohio	L	L
Sat	02/04/06	Ohio	Bowling Green, Ohio	L	L
Tue	02/07/06	Eastern Michigan	Bowling Green, Ohio	W	W
Sat	02/11/06	Toledo	Toledo, Ohio	L	L
Tue	02/14/06	Akron	Akron, Ohio	L	L
Sat	02/18/06	Bracket Buster	Bowling Green, Ohio	L	W
Tue	02/21/06	Kent State	Bowling Green, Ohio	L	W
Sun	02/26/06	Buffalo	Buffalo, NY	L	W
Wed	03/01/06	Miami (Oh)	Bowling Green, Ohio	L	W
Sat	03/04/06	Ohio	Athens, Ohio	L	L

Grass is Greener Edition

With Ron Lewis and Erik Crawford in the NCAA tourney after leaving BG, and Coach Jim Larranaga now in the Sweet 16, Falcon fans have to be wondering about whether there is something to be gained by leaving Anderson Arena.

1968 was the last time we were in the Big Dance, so when you have two transfer players and a coach you ran out of town in the same tourney, you can't help but notice--and your emotions aren't exactly ones you are proud of.

While you're at it, there's a little bit of this in reverse, too. West Virginia is now in its second straight sweet 16 with the Coach they picked after Dan Dakich. They're not looking back, and neither is he (I'm sure), but its starting to look like coaching us is not going to involve the Big Dance for a little while.

Women's team defeated

We're very proud of our women's hoops team, as they ripped off one of the most dominant seasons in school history in any sport this year. Today, they just ran up against a team they absolutely couldn't match up with. Given our dominance in the MAC, and the gap between us and a #5 seed, I wonder if there isn't less parity in women's hoops then in men's hoops.

We gave a courageous run at it, getting to six down in the second half, but UCLA just had way too much firepower and depth.

The team loses only only senior with serious PT, and should be an equal force again in 2006-07. Perhaps they can cap off their career with a win in the NCAAs then.

Great line by Coach Miller:

"UCLA has three WNBA players. We have three MBA players."

GO BG WOMEN!!

Precious little blogging on our stellar women's hoops team this year. Sad to say, I haven't even been to one game. There are only so many hours/days in a week, and I am already using more bandwidth than I have. Having said that, they are the true bright spot of our athletic department today, and I look forward to watching them play on ESPN today. An upset over UCLA would be sweet--though our team doesn't owe its fans a thing, win or lose.

Disappointment in our Home Football Schedule

Falcon football fans are disappointed, and I think rightly so, as details of the 2006 home schedule had come out. Originally, we were excited. The 12 game schedule would give six "home dates." We had sacrificed one to play Wisconsin in Cleveland, leaving us with five (a normal number) home games. And, one of those games was going to be against a high-quality IA opponent--Boise State.

Not so much. To help with some other issues in the conference, we agreed to put Boise off until next year. At the time we were promised a replacement IA opponent, and I think we all assumed it would be at home, and a return Temple visit as a worst case scenario.

Apparently not. The season ticket renewals were sent out this week, and they show only four Doyt-based home games. They've tried to sweeten the deal by giving additional tickets to the Wisconsin game away free (like I know lots of people looking to drive over for that who don't already have season tickets). This clearly means an away game, probably (to add insult to injury), AT TEMPLE.

Some hold out hope that a game might be added, but I can't see it happening. Wouldn't that throw off your entire season ticket pricing? Yes, it would.

The final point: the home schedule is now Buffalo, Kent, EMU and Miami.

To the Falcon athletic administration.

1. Fix in your mind what we drew for Akron last year.
2. Get used to it

Finally, speaking as a fan, I love games at the Doyt. I love everything about it--they're my best five Saturdays of the year. Now down to four, likely in 2/3 empty stadiums.

This is no way to build a loyal, consistent fan base.

Our Basketball Coach

As we lose our second guard in a month, and many fear an ongoing exodus of basketball players from our program, the calls for Coach Dakich's head on message boards and in private conversation continue to grow. Coach has one year left on his deal, and I don't expect him to be bought out--in fact, it would shock me. So he has one more year, but he also has a new AD coming in who might want his own guy.

My view? Coach Dakich is a good and decent man. I like him, and I think he is good for the community and the university.

Our basketball program has got to be turned around. I hope that Coach is the one who does it, but he's simply not going to be given unlimited time to do it.

I worry that the momentum in the program right now is so negative that it will be hard to turn it around in one year.

To sum up: I want to see Dan succeed, but I fear the hole is too deep.

Falcon Guard Moon Robinson to leave program

In what is expected to be the first of mulitple departures from the BGSU program, Moon Robinson is leaving. A defensive minded PG with few offensive skills, he still contributed useful minutes last year and would have next year. Even with Ryan Sims coming in, this represents a loss. Beyond the on the court angle, what does it say to quality recruits to have players continue to leave?

02-03
Stephen Wright--Productive player, left prior to his senior season.
Ron Lewis--Two productive seasons, no junior year.
Raheem Moss--26 games, two starts, 66 career points, left program.

03-04
Chris Hobson, 28 games, 51 points, left program.
Austin Montgomery 56 games, 189 points, transferring.
Reggie Harwell--Nada.
Matt Lefeld--45 games, 52 points. Still in program.
Isaac Rosefelt--24 minutes, two points. Left Program.

04-05

Scott Vandermeer, 60 points and 40 fouls. Transferring.
Moon Robinson, Left program after sophomore season.
Mawel Soler, completed eligibility. Effective player, even good in spots.

05-06

Jeremy Holland--left program after one practice
Nick Wilson--left program without playing a game.
Lionel Sullivan--eligibility redshirt.
Dusan--Still in program
Erick Marschall--appears to be legit.
Daryl Clements--didn't see much action. People seem to think he could be good.
Brian Moten--high credentials, didn't produce much and seemed lost. Still here.
Martin Samarco--2nd team All-MAC, legit D1 player.