"Horrendous" Defense for Sinking BG MBB Team

 Things are not good in MBB-land today.  Not good at all.  They've got the weekend off and play NIU on Tuesday and  (see update) they need to get some things sorted out because this team is tracking toward a bottom-division finish.  They have lost 3 of 4, and by 24, 12 and 19 points.  And, yes, Akron is a decent team but Ball State and Miami are pretty average and should not have beat the conference favorites by those kind of margins.

BG has to figure out what the deal is and get it turned around.  They certainly should be better than this.  You can see Coach trying to find something...Chanler Turner played 19 minutes...Swingle played 3.  Fields played 22, Matheny 24.  But, search as he might, nothing is clicking.  (Fields was -22 in 22 minutes).  (Also, Jacob Washington DNP at all, no idea on that).

It was wire to wire...Miami scored the first 7 points and they never trailed by less than 7 for the remainder of the game.  It only got to 7 a couple times...most of the time it was in double figures.  It was a completely one-sided affair.  BG literally never challenged the Redhawks lead.

The issue was a little different than in previous games.  BG had shot very poorly for the previous 3 games--even the win--and in this one they had a 48% EFG, which is below average but better than it had been.  BG shot 51% from 2FG (which is decent) but 27% from 3FG.  BG has shot under 30% from 3FG in all of the last 4 games and in MAC play has only had solid 3FG shooting against CMU.  They are 9th in the MAC.

Meanwhile, Miami came in 8th in offense in the MAC and scored at will.  They had 1.4 points per possession, the worst against BG since that 2018 cringe-inducer at Savage Hall.  It was Miami's best offensive game against DI opposition since at least 2002, the beginning of when we have records.  So, the 8th best team in the MAC puts up a historic total.  Cannot be good.

Miami shot 68% overall, that's 65% from 2FG and 48% from 3FG.  They also won the turnover battle and the rebounding battle.  Honestly, BG lost by 19 and they had +10 at the free throw line.  That's hard to believe.

Coach Huger called the defense "horrendous."

BG has lost 5 games this year and in 4 of them the opposition shot 60% EFG or better.

Plowden had 21 points and 5 rebounds.  He shot 5 of 11 from 2FG and 3 of 7 from 3FG, which is a creditable overall game.  Turner had 20 on 4 of 10 and 0 of 3 shooting.  He made all 12 FTs, but had 3 assists and 5 turnovers.  Trey Diggs had a double-double, with 16 points (on 5 of 8 from 2FG and 0 of 2 from 3FG) and 11 rebounds and Josiah Fulcher had 11 points on 4 of 6 and 1 of 2 shooting.

He played 21 minutes and Chandler Turner played 19.

It is time for everyone to take a close look at themselves.  Toledo has 1 loss, Akron, Kent and Miami have 2 and BG, Buffalo and Ball State have 3.  I'd put BG in 6th place right now, behind Ball State if you just look at the loss column.  Also, BG has played the most MAC games (9 of 20) and thus has less control over its destiny than the other teams.

Obviously, what matters most is one game in Cleveland.  Just hard to be optimistic about that right now.  Can still be fixed.

Update:  BG's game with NIU Tuesday has been postponed due to NIU's pause.  As of now, BG's next game will be Saturday against Le Rocket.