Falcons Lose to Oakland

We traveled up to north Detroit to play Oakland University, where BG Grad Greg Kampe has been at the helm for the past 24 flipping years. And Oakland, always a well coached team with a lot of transfers and quality players, beat us by 10, 90-80.

For the second straight game, after playing an even first half,, a team came out against us and shot 66.7% in the second half, outscored us by 13, and won the game.

We actually did our best to match them most of the way (we shot 60% in the second half ourselves), and with 6:10 left, we had a 65-64 lead. However, from there until 1:31 was left, we had exactly one basket, and Oakland scored 12, and that was all she wrote.

I'm sure Coach Orr continues to worry about a couple things. First, we continue to have spotty defense against the field goal. And second, my observation is that we continue to really struggle against the zone, although frankly, I expected that to show up in the game numbers more than it did. Finally, we were crushed on the boards, 35-24. Ouch.

We had 18 turnovers and 23 fouls (it seemed like we fouled even more than that). Oakland made 28 FTS and we made 11. Our three point shooting finally came around a little as we went 5-13 from 38.5%

Chris Knight was back to his scoring self, with 23 points, although he isn't in double-double territory anymore (3 boards). Nate Miller continues to be our best player (21/5), and Darryl Clements had his best game of the season with 13 points. Hamblet also had 11 points.

We basically rotated six guys--Knight, Miller, Clements and Hamblet, along with Larson and Jakubowski. Otis played eight minutes in which he committed four fouls.

We are now 4-3, with a game against a very poor N. Colorado team next week, though it is on the road. I'm not terribly surprised. Maybe that opening tourney in Cincy raised our hopes a little, but this team really struggled last year to win games, and this year's team is going to have some time like this.

I like some things I am seeing. We do get some transition hoops. Coach says he wants to play inside out, and I just don't get the sense that we have the inside horses to make that work.