BG Wins 7th Straight

And that's 7 in a row.

That's the longest winning streak in MAC play since 1980--I mean 1980!!--which was the year BG made the first MAC Final at Crisler Arena.  They lost to UT.

Anyway, this was a good one to get.  Ball State is a tough team to score on, they are in the top echelon of the conference and we were coming off the big UT win...this was one that was set up to be trouble.  It also turned out to be trouble some of the way, too, but in the end BG got the job done and now sits alone in first place.

It's been a great month of basketball.  I love this team.  

Ball State bolted out to a 12-2 lead.  Then midway through the half, BG picked it up.  The lead was down to 2 with 5 mintues left than BG went on a 15-6 run to close the half leading by 11.

If anyone was feeling like that was the end of the story, they were mistaken.  BSU had the lead down to 2 in just over 3 minutes.  With 13:00 left, Ball State had tied the game and then they took the lead. They held the lead until there was 3:40 left.

They were up 2 with the ball.

Let's pause here and add an interesting fact.  Justin Thomas  (should have had more coffee) Turner has 7 points...he's struggled all night to make shots.  Just file that away.

BG gets a stop and on the other end Turner (10 points) drains a 3FG.  BG leads...as they will for the remainder of the game, 3:08 to play.

Dylan Frye got a steal on the other end and Turner (12 points) came down and hit a jumper.  BG up by 3 with 2:28 to play.

Daeqwon Plowden got a steal and Turner came down and hit a 3FG (15 points) and BG was up 6 with 2:02 to play.

BS missed a 3FG and the rebound went out of bounds.  BG came down the floor and Justin Turner (17 points) hit a jumper to go up 8 with 1:23 left.

BG didn't have its greatest last minute, missing some FTs and a turnover and aided by the fact that Marreon Jackson doesn't play for Ball State, but Turner hit 3 FTs (20 points) and the Falcons closed the door, 67-61.

The story of the game wasn't all Justin Turner--more to come--but MAN.  He stunk the place up for most of the game...but he didn't get discouraged or frustrated...he just rallied and took the game over in the decisive minutes.  It was something to see.  And it was a win.

It was a defensive struggle, meaning Ball State was able to get the game into a grind the way they want.  The preview had noted that Ball State had trouble scoring but was very good on the defensive end.  Both were true...defense first, they held BG to .95 points per possession.  They are a very active defense.  They doubled off screens, helped effectively and made life difficult for BG's shooters.  BG shot 37% from 2FG and 36% from 3FG...the latter number saving their bacon, but still a tough shooting night.

Not as tough as Ball State's though.  They shot 46% on 2FG and 19% on 2FGs and they tried 40% of their FG attempts as 3s.  (I'm not sure I understand why they have continually played this way).  That's the lowest shooting percentage for any BG opponent this year.

Turnovers are interesting.  BG continues to lead the country in lowest turnover percentage, but they force so few on the other end that in the last couple games BG is actually losing possessions on turnovers.  They are last in the MAC and 284th on forcing turnovers.  BSU came with turnover problems.  They had 7 turnovers...but two were in the decisive minutes.

Nobody did any offensive rebounding.  BG was greatly aided as BSU went 10-20 from the FT line--in fact, this is maybe the key factor in the game.  BG was 15 of 19 from the line, with 3 of the last 4 misses in the last minute.

Besides the Turner heroics, BG's Trey Diggs was phenomenal and kept the Falcons in the game.  Without him, the last 3 minutes are garbage time.  He scored 25 points, shooting 3 of 4 from 2FG and 5 of 8 from 3FG.  He was 4-5 at the line and added 6 rebounds.

Turner had the 20 already mentioned, plus 6 rebounds.  Plowden struggled with his shot but added 15 rebounds.  They covered Frye, but he didn't force it and added 6 assists and no turnovers.

So, that's 7-1.  BG has 4 home games left and 6 road games.  They play @UB on Friday night on national cable and then @ CMU on Tuesday.