Falcon MBB with 8th win

 BG's MBB team more or less motored over Chicago State on Tuesday night in the last game before the MAC opener.  Chicago State came in very lowly ranked, but off a win at Loyola-Chicago that did come to BG and play really hard, but the Falcons had enough to get the win, leading wire to wire.

BG got out to a 6-0 lead, forcing a Cougar timeout before 2 minutes had been played.  BG got the lead to 11 but Chicago State mostly kept it in the single digits.  With 4 minutes left in the half they had trimmed the lead to 1, but BG went on a 13-2 run to halftime to lead by 12. The run continued into the second half...BG was up 19 with about 14 to play.  

The Cougars went on a 7-2 run later in the half, cutting the deficit to 8 with 6 to play.  You always hate to let a team get the lead into single digits, but BG responded like they did at the end of the first half, going on a 16-3 run to finish with a 21 point lead, their largest lead of the game.

BG set the tone on defense.  More on that...BG is playing really solid defense so far this year.  They held Chicago State to .82 points per possession, 29% from 2FG and 30% from 3FG.  The Cougs even struggled at the line, where they had been really good.

BG had an average game from 3FG, 30%, but was very effective from 2FG, at 66%, their best in a D1 game this year.  They also took good care of the ball against a team that tries to turn you over to mitigate Chicago State's strong rebounding.

BG had two double-doubles, both bigs, as the Falcons had a significant size advantage (helping to lead to 10 blocked shots). Towns had 19 and 11, on 6 of 7 and 2 of 4 shooting.  He was 1 of 4 at the line and +33.

Glover had 10 and 10, on 5 of 8 shooting. 

Ruffin had 15 on 2 of 3 and 3 of 6 shooting and 9 assists, a career high.  Thomas had 6 assists.

Preston Squire played for the first time this year.

Next up is Ohio U. 

Chicago State Preview

 The Falcon MBB team is back at it after a long break for finals.  MAC play starts Saturday, there's another scheduled blow-out on Monday, and then it will be MAC play from there on in, save the MAC-SBC game.

After our last two home D1 games being poor efforts, the Falcons are certainly looking to get well against Chicago State.

Chicago State is one of the more troubled programs in the Midwest.  Their last winning season was 2009. They have single-digit wins in 13 out of the last 17 seasons.  They are 6-37 over their last two seasons

They have bounced around in conferences, but are now in the Northeast Conference, the #30 (out of 31) conference and probably a good placement for them, except for the bus time. 

This is the 5th time we have played the Cougars. The series actually started in 1970.  BG has won all the previous games, never closer than 18.  Todd Simon's first game was against Chicago State...the Bewley twins were ineligible...and BG won by 29.

So, Chicago State was 1-9 heading into Sunday's game @Loyola. The win was over a non-D1 opponent.  And then the Cougs went in and beat the Ramblers, handily, by 9.  (Loyola is in utter collapse.  Predicted to be pretty good, they are 3-8, with losses to NIU, Mercyhurst and Chicago State, among others.)

Anyway.  The pre-season NEC poll had the Cougars 6th, Blue Ribbon 8th.

They started the year #362 and they are up to #349 now.  There are 365 teams.

Their coach is in his first year, but was successful at Alcorn State. 

I'm not going to go into the usual stats breakdown, because their stats are mostly terrible, as you would expect. They are a physical, crash-the-offensive-boards team. They make 79% of their free throws which is #13 in the NCAA. They shoot 3FGs at the 8th lowest rate in the country.

They do force turnovers on defense. 

Their leading scorer is Marcus Tankersley at 15.2 PPG.  He started at Detroit, went to Alcorn and then moved to Chicago State with the coach. He's shooting 46% from 2FG.

Next is Doyel Cockrill. He's scoring 14.6.  He's by far their best 3FG shooter, making 47%.  He transferred from Fisk.

Last is CJ Ray, scoring 10.8 PPG on 45% and 33% shooting.  Has only missed one FT all season.  He transferred from Southern Arkansas and had 19 vs. Loyola.

BG is a 10 or 11 point favorite.

Utah Valley Proves Too Tough for Falcons

 Well, warnings were issued.  A very good Utah Valley team came in and was relatively dominant over Bowling Green on its home floor...laying its second-straight home egg.  Ultimately, BG was unable to pay off the K-State upset with a similar effort to be an equally tough team.

The first four minutes were pretty competitive with ties and lead changes--the kind of game I expected to see.

From there, UVU exerted a little control, but the lead stayed generally between 3 and 6.   With 6 minutes left in the half, the lead was 9.

BG had it down to 2 with 2 minutes left, but UVU did what good teams always seem to do...Welling nailed a 3FG, they got a stop and then Welling hit a 2FG to make it a 7 point lead heading into the locker room.

The second half was another matter.  UVU came out and had the lead up to 10 and then led in double digits for the last 15 minutes. The lead was up to 26 and BG went on a 13-2 run to get it to 11, but let there be no doubt, it was a one-sided drubbing.

The Wolverines shot 38% from 2FG and 68% from 3FG in the half.  BG made 3 late 3FGS, before which they were 1-20-something.

While it is tempting to make the shooting the culprit, the issue was defense.  BG allowed 1.14 points per possession.  They are 1-3 this year when allowing more than 1 point per possession, and that was in Manhattan, you saw the shooting we needed to make that happen.

UVU made 36% from 3FG, which is good but not incredible.  However, they shot 70% on 2FG, highlighted by a parade of wide-open back doors and then capped by some press-breaking dunks. That's the #8 highest 2FG shooting percentage for UVU in their D1 era.

BG made 61% on 2FGs, which is good, but 17% from 3FG and way worse for most of the game.  BG had a slight turnover advantage, but allowed UVU a big day on the offensive boards---almost as good as K-State had.

Javonte Campbell carried this team's attack on its back for much of the way.  He ended up with 24, on 8 of 12 and 1 of 2 shooting, 5 of 7 at the line, 5 assists, 3 steals, a block and 2 TOs.

Josiah Shackleford, who has been struggling, came off the bench with 13, on 4 of 7/1 of shooting, 4-4 at the line. Also 3 steals and 3 turnovers. Sam Towns led the team with 6 rebounds but was 3 of 8 and 0 of 5 shooting. Ruffin was 0 and 5 from 3FG and Wol was 2 of 7.

So there we go.  Finals week coming up and then Chicago State in town a week from Tuesday.  The boys are up 35 on the mighty Aquinas at halftime as we speak in one of our 3 non D1 games on the schedule.  The Saints play in the NAIA.

BG is 5-3.

Utah Valley Preview

 So this is one of those games.

When it popped onto the schedule, people in BG were probably like, who?

And people in Orem UT were saying, who?

It's a pretty good mid-major matchup, the best since UC came in 2019 in the last year of the Frack Challenge.

I am looking forward to it.

Orem is named after a railroad magnate in Utah.

In addition to fantasy-football-disaster Rome Oduze, Donny and Marie Osmond are listed as notable residents.

The University is an open enrollment university with 48,000 students enrolled.  It is one of the biggest universities in the Rockies region.

And yes, it was where Charlie Kirk was killed.

In 2003, they were still competing as a junior college.  Amazingly, they moved from JUCO to D1 directly.

They have had some pretty good coaches.  Dick Hunsaker was the first and eventually coached at Ball State.  His replacement was named Mark Pope. Then Mark Madsen, who is now at Cal...and now Todd Phillips, who was elevated from the staff but won a national NJCAA title at Salt Lake CC.

He has won 62% of his games with the Wolverines.  They won the regular season title last year at 25-9 and 15-1 before losing to Grand Canyon in the conference final.

BG has never played Utah Valley.  Todd Simon was 4-1 against them at Southern Utah. 

They play in the WAC, which I think a lot of us thought was out of business until we hired Coach Simon.  In fact, last year they were the #15 conference (vs. the MAC, #23) and this year #16, while the MAC is #13 (which is interesting.  We'll see).  Don't get used to it.  By next year, UVU will be in the Big West.

UVU was picked #2 in the WAC poll and #4 by Blue Ribbon.   (By the way, Southern Utah is DFL). 

As would be expected, they lost their top 3 scorers to P4 schools.

They started the year with a KenPom of 111, and it's up to 89.  That would be 2nd in the MAC to Akron.

They are 5-3 and 3-3 in D1 games. The wins are over UC-Irvine by 7, South Dakota State (163) by 27 on a neutral floor, and Samford (240) by 44 on a neutral floor. Losses @Boise (61), @Fresno by 1 (160), and @San Diego State this week (47) by 11.

Offensively, they score 1.07 points per possession, which is the D1 average.  They focus on 2FGs...they take only 34% from 3FG.  They make 57% from 2FG (69) and 36% from 3FG (81).  Overall shooting is #55).  They are, however, terrible at protecting the ball (#312), average on offensive rebounds and poor at getting to the line and #332 at making FTs.

Their calling card is defense.  They are #58 in the nation, allowing only .98 point per possession.  It's a difficult combo...they are #62 in defending the shot and #61 in forcing turnovers.  They defend the 3FG and the 2FG equally well. They are average on the defensive boards, and they do get teams to the line. They are #37 in the nation in block% and #20 in steals.

They are long...#92 in the country in average height.  BG is #81.

Their leading scorer is Jackson Holcombe, a 6'7" F who is organically a Wolverine. He's scoring 15.6 PPG on 61% 2FG shooting.  He also leads the team with 7.3 RPG per game, 30 assists and a team-high 19 steals.

Tyler Hendriks scores 13 PPG.  He's a 6'6" transfer from UCF.  That's 41% on 2FG but a scorching 55% from 3FG.

Trevon Leonhardt is a 6'5" G who has spent his entire career at UVU.  He leads the team with 49 assists and scores 12.8 PPG. He makes 59% on 2FG and 41% on 3FG. He also has 17 steals.

This is going to be a good test for us.  BG is favored by 1.5.  Hope BG fans realize and head out to see our guys in a real test.

Football Update

Well.  A very action-packed couple of days for the football program.

There's signing day, with good news.  A presser with more clues. The All-MAC teams...and then, well, whomp-whomp, people began to announce they were heading into the portal.

Let's start with the recruiting.

All normal caveats apply here.  Ratings can be unreliable, especially for MAC-level players.  Also, Mike Jinks had a #2 ranked class in 2017...you can scan the class here and see how many you recognize.

Even with all that, it's a data point. And in this one, BG ended up with the #2 ranked class overall in the MAC and the #1 rating per player.  It doesn't decide anything...but it represents progress.

Again, using 247 numbers, the top ten recruits in the 247-era for BG had 6 of them sign yesterday.  For full info on each of the guys, check here.

We have been following this and covered these guys when they committed.  We had two guys we expected who did not sign--Jordan Tarver, who announced he was opening his recruiting and then Isaiah Hayward, a WR from Whitmer from which no one has heard anything publicly.

We had two late additions.  One was Travis Robertson, and he becomes, again by the ranking, the #2 recruit we have ever had.

He's a 6'5", 320 pound OL that we had once.  He flipped to UCLA and then we flipped him back. That has the potential to be big...he could even contribute right away at a position of severe need.

The other was Samuel Roussos, who we talked about a couple days ago.

Every player we signed has 3 stars...that's never happened.

Now, it needs to be turned into wins.  But for now, this is a big day for our program.

Coach had his presser today.  There was a lot of stuff about leadership, meeting families, character, etc.  It's important, but you can watch that if you want.

The key was the talk about the portal.  To be clear, he is going to look for a QB, OL and WRs in the portal.  And they are all needed.  As much as they might like Jarin Mock, they don't want to throw him right into the fires.  So starting 1/2, that will be worth watching.

The All-MAC team came out.  The headline was Cameron Pettaway being the MAC FR of the Year.  This is wholy deserved.  I hope we see him again next year.  

Lampron and Jyrin Johnson were also well-deserved members of the first team. Pettaway made it as the returner. 

Also, OL Nate Pabst and PK Jackson Kleather on the second team, while CB MJ Cannon and CB Jalen McClendon earned third-team recognition.

Not bad, it's what you would expect for a team with two league wins.  FWIW, only 3 of those players signed with BG out of HS.

Soooo.  Now, the literal worst part of the year.  Watching guys march into the portal.  These are the players far.  Moses, Eklund, Goodloe and Stocksdale did not get many snaps for us this year.

The others.  Starting with kind of heart-breaker, as Jacob Harris entered the portal.  Given everything, you'd hope to hold him, but if it's going to be a business, he is as entitled as the next guy to make his move.  Caden Marshall moved up when Pringle was injured and did pretty well.  Chris Edmonds didn't play too much, but Chris McMillian was the lead RB to start the year and ended up sidelined by the end. Finally, RJ Garcia played a lot but was part of our underperforming WR unit.

DT	Malik Moses
LB	Justin Eklund
LB	Caden Marshall
RB	Chris Edmonds
RB	Chris McMillian
TE	Jacob Harris
WR	Reis Stocksdale
WR	Caleb Goodloe
WR	RJ Garcia

 There will be more.  Such is the road we travel.

Commit....Portal...and Signing Day...

This commit is Samuel Dossous, a DE/Edge from Massillon HS.

Listed at 6'4" and 225 pounds, he also had offers from Kent and Miami.

He was named to the all-county team in a county where football is King.  Beyond that, there are a number of stories about his wreaking havoc with sacks, TFL and forced fumbles.

The Falcons have their first player in the portal...Justin Ecklund.  He is a LB transfer from San Jose State, who made one start but played sparingly, making 7 total tackles on the year.

Samuel, welcome to the Falcons.  Justin, best of luck to you.

Tomorrow is signing day. The BG football feed does a pretty good job of posting every time a document comes in.  Feel free to check it out, and then tomorrow night, we'll look at what happened.  Presumably, there will be guys who committed and de-committed at the last minute.

This is an important class.  The portal signees will have a more immediate impact, but BG's model requires them to recruit HS players effectively and then develop them.

Falcon MBB Gets First P4 win in 20 years

Well, now.  How about that?  It was a great night to be a Falcon...as BG went on the road to a P4 opponent, double-digit underdog, and led wire-to-wire to beat the Wildcats by 16 on the road.  It was a great performance by our boys that is turning some heads.

The last P4 win was much different.  BG beat Virginia Tech when a Hokie tipped the ball into his own basket in a last second melee at the rim.  Pre-replay, Coach Dakich debuted his strategy of dealing with the close call by getting his team off the floor quickly...which came back to haunt in the even more famous overtime loss in Buffalo years later.  Note:  That team finished 9-21

It was one of those nights.  We showed what we can do.  BG scored the first 5 points and led the entire way. With 8 minutes left, they were up 7. With 5 minutes left, K-State cut the lead to 2, but the Falcons closed on a 16-4 run to lead by 14 heading into the locker room.

That's 49-35, I might add.  The Falcons had 49 first-half points.  

The game was stable early in the second.  BG had the lead to 17 before the first media timeout. K-State hung tough, chipped it to 11, and it stayed in that neighborhood, and then the Wildcats got it to 8 with 8 minutes left, and you figure they are ready to make their run.

But that's not what happened.  BG turned them back.  It never got that close again, and heading into the last media timeout BG was up 11.  And they did what good teams do...they kept extending the lead until it was 17 points with about a minute left and the game was dribbled out.  K-State quit fouling and it was over.  82-66.

It was amazing, if not for nothing else, it was so easy.  Even when K-State pressed, BG handled it with poise every time.  How many times has BG wilted in the last 10 years under pressure?

So how did the game get won?  BG had 1.28 points per possession, their best offensive game of the year.  Since the horrible shooting game against W&M, BG's EFG has been right in the .55 range...solid and effective.  BG made .44 on 2FG and 46% on 3FG, with 41% of their shots from 3FG. This time, BG got the turnovers back under control and continued to have outstanding offensive rebounding.  And BG made 74% of their free throws.

Meanwhile, Kansas State came in #3 in the nation in 3FG%...and made 26% against the Falcons.  Their 2FG shooting was 48%, also not great.  They had a slight lead in turnovers, got a lot of offensive rebounds, and got to the line, though they were 12-22 for 55%.

This is the first game BG has won without forcing over 20% turnovers. 

Coach said they focused hard on guarding the 3FG line, and it certainly showed.  

Individually.....hey Sam Towns!!  Take a bow. Career night, 27 points, 6 of 9 2FG shooting, 3 of 5 3FG shooting, 6-6 at the line, 8 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals and 0 turnovers...if that might work for you.  In fact, he was "line o' the night" on kempom.

Javon Ruffin is really looking solid...17 on 0 of 3 and 5 of 8 shooting, 2-2 at the line, 5 rebounds and 3 assists.  Javonte Campbell had 17 on 5 of 9 and 1 of 2, 4 of 7 at the line, 6 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 turnovers.  He's adapting well to an offense where he isn't the only guy to shoot.  Troy Glover had 8 boards...and man if he converted a zero-footer here and there?

Marcus Johnson played 2 minutes against his old team, as a kind of gift it appears.

Excitement is gathering.  We ran a very tight 7-man rotation last night and this team just seems to gel.  We don't even mention Justin Thomas, who doesn't generate numbers but might be the best player on the team.

Last night was very exciting and a great accomplishment for our team.  Our Kenpom jumped 30 sports to 108.  Our game with Utah Valley--kenpom of 90--will be very interesting Saturday and a good opportunity to see the team play.