Sunday, December 14, 2008

Falcons Win Slugfest at Anderson Arena

Wow. Well, upon returning home, I saw that we had not allowed a team under forty points in 44 years. The last time was on a February date in 1964 to Western Ontario (Oh Canada!) and tonight was the next.

It was a tough night for the Titans. They were having trouble scoring, and then their top scorer didn't play, and that's a rough combination. They stayed with it the whole way, despite absolutely horrific offensive statistics and even got the game down to 10 points before BG put a run on and closed out the 58-38 win.

The tale of woe includes:

  • 10 Field Goals. (This has to be a record).
  • That's 23%, with 17% in the first half, and a relatively scorching 28% in the second.
  • Of their 38 points, 17 game on free throws. (In other words, if we had not committed 21 fouls--not to mention 17 turnovers), they might have scored even less.
  • Guards Donavan Payne and Woody Payne were 4-19 from the field.
  • They actually have a guy who is 7'3". He tripped over the center line.
  • The Titans were also out-rebounded 49-28.

It was far from perfect performance from the Falcons. As mentioned above, we had problems with fouls and turnovers, and and only shot 40% ourselves. Actually, with 16:00 left in the game we were up 25, and then got only 8 points in the next 12 minutes as Detroit pulled within 10. However, the Titans DID NOT SCORE AGAIN after that (no, not even a free throw). It was starting to feel like Savannah State, but this time we turned the ship around before it got close.

We did get 7 threes, and that certainly helped.

Brian Moten had a nice night with 15, with Clements and Jakubowski adding 13 (he also had nine boards and seven assists. He plays such a high energy game, and he does it with lots of minutes.)

Our scoring slump coincided with Detroit moving to a zone. This has been a problem for our program for as long as I can remember, and we are no more effective against a zone now than we were in the DD era. We'll have the figure it out, because I am sure it stands out like a beacon on film.

Well, a win is a win is a win. We needed one, and we got it. I still worry about how this team will perform when we get into MAC play. I worry about our ability to score consistently, and I think everyone was counting on more production from a couple of players who aren't providing it right now.

The good news is, the MAC is down. And if we get it put together, it is even more wide open than we thought at the beginning of the year.

1 comment :

Anonymous said...

Flipping through the media guide, the last time we held a "legitimate" (read: Not Western Ontario (twice) or Hillsdale (once)) under 40 points was Dec. 1949 against Loyola.

Very impressive effort (and impressively bad on UDM's part).