BG Outlasts Dartmouth

BG played its first D1 opponent at the Stroh yesterday and picked up the win they were expected to get.  In fact, BG was favored by 8 and won by 7.  There were certainly parts of the game that were not pretty for the Falcons but overall it's a win.

First, as Urban Meyer said, "one thing we will never apologize for is winning."

Second, BG is playing without its best player and possibly the best player in the MAC.

That was certainly evident on the offensive end, where the Big Green put a lot of attention on Trey Diggs and BG seemed to lack another scorer or even anyone who wanted to shoot.  Coach Huger's point on the post game show is that Justin is also our best defensive player and our organizer on defense and we miss him maybe more there.

BG ended up with a decent offensive day, but there was a period early in the second half when Dartmouth was just shredding BG, particularly off the dribble.  To be fair, we've seen that problem before even with Turner in the game...we seem to go through spells where we don't stop the ball in transition.  We eventually cleaned that up and things got getter from there.

BG bolted out to a big lead, up 19 with about 10 minutes left in the first.  I think everyone felt like it was going to be an easy win...Coach thought BG let up on defense.  Four minutes later DU had it inside 10 and that was the halftime margin.

The second half start was terrible.  UD scored 8 points in the first 2 minutes of the half to get the lead to 5.  A couple minutes later they had it to 3.  They never got it closer, but neither did BG pull away. 

With 4 minutes left DU had the ball down 3 and a chance to tie the game.  They missed, BG turned the ball over and they got a second shot, which they missed again.  Marlon Sierra then hit a key 2FG off an offensive rebound to put the lead up to 5, a key basket.  DU got it back to 3 and on the next possession Sierra hit a dagger 3 to put the game back to 6 with 1:43 left.  BG made 5 of 6 from the line in the last minute and had the victory.

Looking at the stats, BG had a decent defensive game.  It was a 70 possession game and DU ended up with .99 per possession, which is about average so far this year.  The offense was 1.09 points per possession. 

As you can see, overall shooting was even, though each team got there a different way.  BG continues to struggle on 2FG (47%) but shot really well on the 3FG (46%).  Not too often those numbers are essentially equal.  Also remember DU has defended the 3FG really well this year.  Meanwhile DU was 54% on 2FG and 38% on 3FGs.

If you are surprised at BG's overall defensive result, I was too.  I think you might focus on them making shots, as seen above.  However, as seen below, they took good care of the ball but still conceded possessions to BG, did virtually no offensive rebounding (but kept BG out of transition as a result) and then shot only 6 FTs, making 4.  BG, which has been shooting the ball very well at the line, was only 13 of 26.  Decent night at the line and this one isn't close.

Individually, just two words.

Dylan Frye.  What we are seeing is a player who has really developed while in BG.  He's a complete player and a total stud.  He scored 30 points--a career high and 39% of BG's total.  He wasn't jacking it up...he was 5 of 10 on 2FGs and 6 of 11 on 3FGs.  He added 5 rebounds and 3 assists (5 turnovers) for what amounts to a career night to date.  He's a tough and gritty and carrying the team with Turner injured.

Trey Diggs scored 17 on 2 of 4 and 4 of 8 shooting.  He had most of those early, but I think its worth noting that he didn't try to force it.  He also had 7 rebounds.

Marlon Sierra, already mentioned, scored 11 with 7 in the game's final phase with 6 rebounds.

Plowden had 8 points and 12 rebounds shooting 3-4 on 2FGs.

On a player rotation note, we noted in the preview that DU is not a big team.  BG opted to match their size as opposed to trying to out-big them.  BG's true 5s played only 17 minutes.

Team has the week off...next up is Oakland, who is not as good as they have been but always feel dangerous and who pushed UT to the end at Savage last night.