Falcon MBB Loses at JAR, That's 5 straight

As expected, BG dropped their game to Akron last night at the JAR.  

It was probably a little worse than the final score indicates.

Akron led for 34 minutes and BG led for 2.  The first half was reasonably competitive, staying mostly within one possession and ending up with Akron up 3.

The second half saw UA slowly put the game away.  They got it to 8 with 17 left, but then BG shaved it back to 2 over a couple minutes.  With 12:15 UA had the lead to 9 and by 10 left they had it to 11.  It went over 10 to stay with 9 minutes left, got as high as 16 with 5 minutes left and ended at 14.

The thing about the overall scoring is the pace of the game.  As noted in the preview, Akron plays the slowest pace in the MAC.  In fact, it was a 60 possession game.  BG average in the low 70s and the UB game had 85 possessions.  At 60, it was the slowest game BG has played since 2016.

So, when Akron gets 82 points on only 60 possessions, it's shockingly efficient offense.  In fact, it was BG's worst defensive effort of the season, by this measure, slightly worse than the last time we played Akron.

BG didn't have a bad offensive game--1.14 points per possession--but nowhere near what was needed to overcome the points they were letting Akron score.

The Zips made 71% of their 2FGs.  The MAC average is 51%.  That's the best 2-point shooting since UT smoked the Falcons at Savage in 2018.  Meanwhile, they also made 39% of their 3FGs--which is also above the MAC average of 34%.  They took good care of the ball, had a good night on the offensive boards and shot a ton of FTs and made 75%.

Meanwhile, BG shot 65% on 2FGs but only 29% from 3FG.  They took good care of the ball but didn't do much offensive rebounding, shot only 16 FTs and made only 9.

Samari Curtis has a nice game, scoring 21 points on 5 of 7 from 2FG and 3 of 6 from 3FG.  Plowden had 14 on 4 of 9 and 1 of 3 shooting and 6 rebounds and Mills finished with 12 on 5 of 7 2FG shooting.

So on it goes.  BG is now 5-12 in the MAC and on a five-game losing streak.  It is very difficult to see them making the tournament at this point, but there are five teams with 5 or 6 MAC wins right now.

Even so, you hope to make the tournament and catch a run, and there's been nothing to suggest this team is ready to do that.