Streak Ends

The Falcons winning streak came to a screeching halt in a game against the EMU Eagles, who came in a 3-21 with just one D1 win this year.

I will give the Eagles credit for this. Despite their struggles, they are still playing very hard. They played an energetic zone that gave us absolute fits, and hit the open looks we were giving, and then withstood numerous second half charges to come away with the win. A very nice effort for them, and a win they earned.

For several weeks, the formula for BG has been pretty similar...play really good D, and someone will come through on the offensive end to provide enough scoring to win. He has sometimes been Moten, Polk, Jakubowski, Clements, even Scott Thomas, (Miller almost always scores), but today, in the first 33 minutes of the game, there wasn't anyone, and we were struggling badly to score.

But, that wasn't the only part of the equation that didn't work. Our the defensive end, we provided WAY too many open looks on jumpers, and our post defense was really poor, as EMU's players often got the ball down there, guarded, and just charged around the defender for an easy basket. I think we were missing Larson quite a bit down there.

EMU shot 46% for the game, and we're going to struggle to win like that.

Coach Orr was constantly pulling guys in and out trying to find someone who wanted to make plays, but more often than not, for the early part of the game, he was disappointed. I saw some rare cracks in his calm facade on the sideline.

We had a couple of nice runs, and we brought the game back into contention coming down the stretch, but each time we did, EMU had enough in the tank to stretch it out again. At one point, we had it down to 5, and EMU had the ball. We needed a stop to keep the pressure on, which we got. But, we bricked a 3 on the other end, and then after a lot of work, Bowdrey ended up in the paint with an old-school 3-point play.

Another time we seemed to be on a run, and stopped ourselves with a technical foul.

And then in the final minute Nate Miller hit a couple threes, and it was down to 4, but again we couldn't close the margin.

At one point, Bowdrey and Dobbins were both on the bench with three fouls, and (I have to look to see for sure) EMU was able to hold the margin while they were out.

It was just a night when we didn't play very well much of the game, and EMU was working hard and making shots, and we were always the chaser but never the leader.

It is disappointing, but I'd like to know the last time we won 6 out of 7 conference games. It has been quite a while. So we had a setback. Nothing lasts forever.

We head back to the east now, and things are going to continue to be tough, starting with a game at Buffalo Wednesday night. Hopefully, tonight's loss becomes a chance for the team to learn and build as the season reaches the home stretch.