BG Notches Win Over Buffalo

BG notched a home win over UB last night.  I always love walking out of the arena with a win. These winnable home games are key to the team.  The narrative right now is we keep it together, hit .500 in the MAC, get to Cleveland, hopefully get some guys back and then make a run at a conference that lacks anything close to a dominant team.  That's not a prediction, it's a path.

The first half was pretty tough to watch.  BG led 32-28, but both teams shot 32% overall and were collectively 2-25 from 3FG.  Of the 60 points scored, 25 came at the line.

BG came out of the locker room and got things going...as Marcus Johnson and Trey Thomas rallied to change the game.  BG scored the first 7 points of the half to take an 11-point lead and force a UB timeout less than 2 minutes in.   The lead stayed over 10 for the last 14 minutes of the game. It got as high as 19 and BG won 79-61.

The game came off at 70 possessions, which is pretty fast.  Coach has been emphasizing defense, and the Falcons held UB to .88 points per possession, which is below their season average.  BG scored 1.14 points per possession, which is a winning number.

BG did not have a great shooting night--a strong second half got them to 48% on 2FG and 33% on 3FG. That was still better than UB's 46% and 21% with 56% of their attempts on 3FG.  Turnovers and rebounds were relatively even, and there was a huge difference at the line.  UB came in with their only real defensive strength being keeping teams off the line...didn't happen last night, as BG was 27 of 36 while UB was 16-19.

It is our highest FT rate since the Morgan State game of Huger's last year.

BG was carried by Trey Thomas and Marcus Johnson.  Johnson had 21 on 3 of 5 and 3 of 7 shooting, 6-6 at the line, 9 rebounds and 3 assists.  Thomas had 22, 18 in the second half, on 5 of 10 and 3 of 8 shooting and 3-4 at the line,  Butler had 13 on 10 of 13 shooting. Jamai Felt had 9 points, 7 rebounds and 4 blocked shots in 25 minutes.

BG essentially played only 7 men.  Squire played only 3 minutes, collecting 2 fouls.  In addition, Campbell is playing with his fingers taped together, significantly impacting his ball handling.  It remains a difficult situation.

BG has EMU on Saturday, certainly another winnable game.  That would get them to 3-2 before hitting Miami and UT the following week, which are two of the top teams in the MAC.