Let's not talk about New Jersey Again...

Woof.  Tough weekend for the Falcons, who went to Atlantic City with a tournament that, on paper, they should have had zero difficulty winning..even without Justin Turner.  All of these teams would have been ranked at the bottom of the MAC.

BG laid a complete egg on Friday losing to one of the worst teams in the country...who went on to lose in the final to Drexel by 4.  They then played Qunninpiac in the consolation, came out strong and bolted to a 11-0 lead.  At first, you think BG was coming out ready to get redemption.  Unfortunately, that wasn't what happened...the Bobcats had it down to 6 at halftime and to 2 just 2 minutes into the second half.  From there, it was a tight game. Quinnipiac tied the game with 12 left and took the lead with 6 minutes left.

That came in the middle of a 9-2 run that left the Bobcats winning by 5 with 5 minutes left.  With 2 minutes left, BG had the ball down 2 but Sierra missed a layup and the Falcons never had the ball with a one-possession game again, losing 69-64.

The key problem was that BG simply didn't make any baskets in the second half.  They had only one turnover, so they took 42 shots for the half.  And made 8.  Of those, 13 were 3FGs....of which BG made 2.  They scored 25 points, salvaged partly by making 7-8 at the line.

Quinnipiac had switched to a 2-3, which has been kryptonite for the Falcons before.  In fact, it was the main culprit in the Cleveland State debacle of 2018.  The weird thing is that BG was getting good shots--based on Todd Walker and Coach as well, after the game.  So, we were attacking the zone OK (based on this theory), getting good shots but missing them.  Coach said "that's what the zone does to you," which I don't really understand.  Does what?  Makes you miss shots?  In the past, I felt like we had struggled to attack the zone and settled for outside shots, but in this case we seemed to get shots and just missed them.

BG had .96 points per possession in both games--exactly the same total.  That's not good....you can complain about defense all you like...and BG isn't a great defensive team and allowed 1.03 points per possession in both games, their worst except for the LSU game......but even a remotely competent attack would have allowed BG to salvage wins in both games.

BG cleaned up their turnover issues from the previous two games, but just shot awful, as mentioned above.  Offensive rebounding was OK--as you'd expect against a zone.

On defense, the preview noted the QU shoots a lot of 3FGs.  Against BG, they shot 60% of their FG attempts from 3FG.  It's been 3 years since BG faced that high of a 3FG rate.  They made 39%, which is pretty solid.  So, BG didn't defend the 3FG very effectively, despite knowing that was the Bobcats strength.  BG also continues to foul too much.  BG allowed 24 FTs and QU made 18 for a +10 differential at the line.  BG is #318 in the country in allowing FTs.

Individually, Daeqwon Plowden continues to play really well.  He double-doubled at 20 and 11, though he was 8 of 23 getting there, so not as efficient as he has been.  Caleb Fields had 15 of 5 of 11 and 3 of 7 shooting and Mattiss had a perfect 10, making all his shots.

Coach said that he wants everyone to go home, enjoy Christmas and not think about basketball for a while.  I suspect that's going to be a good idea.  It was an ugly weekend in these two games.

The good news is, nothing has been lost, really.  If...

BG was never getting an at-large bid.  The only games BG has to win are going to take place at the Q.
Seasons have hills and valleys and this was a valley.  Coach said after the game, though, that you can't let it define you...we need to "get back to playing like we know we can play." 

If that happens, these games will be forgotten.

Of course, the key element is Justin Turner.  Since he was injured, BG won some games that were closer than expected at home and then stunk it up on a neutral floor.  We're not the same team without him...no one would be.  That's not an excuse...BG should have won these games anyway.  But they're going to have some long nights in conference play based on the results this weekend.

Next up is Hartford on New Year's Eve and then conference play starts with a big one against Kent State at the Stroh.