Falcons Men's Hoops Defeated By UWM (in OT)

Bowling Green lost an overtime game yesterday against UWM, a game they probably should have won.  But, beyond that, the game is more important as for what it tells us than the actual result, since we know that we are in a one-bid conference and being ready when MAC play starts is the key.

Clearly, BG is nowhere near where they want to be right now.  This was their first close game, and for all that, it was a pretty good game and went into overtime and all that.

BG was up 5 with 1:21 left, but UWM got a hoop and then immediately fouled Otis on the inbound.  He missed both free throws, and then the Panthers came down and got an old-style 3 point play to tie the game.  BG turned the ball over on the next possession, and had to get a stop just to force overtime, which they did.

In overtime, BG made only one FG (a desperation 3) and UWM hit 4-5 of their shots and eventually had more than enough to win the game.

Coach said in the post-game that we hate to lose, but that there could be a bigger picture to look at.

There were plusses.  I think Dee Brown had some nice minutes on the offensive end, and Jordan Crawford played really well on both ends of the floor.  Erik Marschall contributed 25 very strong minutes (12/6) and Otis had a double double.  Jakubowski had 16 points and 7 assists.

But we are not going to win games scoring 74 points in regulation or 90 through OT.  Just not likely.

Which brings us to what we could really see out there today that must be fixed, and that is the defense.

For most of the game, UWM shredded our D. In particular, we did not defend the ball at all, and one of our guards was just abused on dribble penetration.  I am not quite sure why we stayed in a man defense as long as we did...(Coach Stone on the radio gave some vague answer about how it had been working with Crawford was defending the ball), but it seems like a zone might have helped.

Coach Orr said in his post-gamer that UWM was difficult to defend because their big men can also be outside men.  In particular, James Eayrs, a 300-lb, light on his feet ballerina of a forward, was difficult for us to defend.  Because our bigs had to step out to defend Eayrs, they were less able to help on the drives to the basket, and I guess that showed.

Perimeter defense was also a problem in the first half, when UWM hit 41% from beyond the 3, and while that gotten tightened down in the second half, it just converted itself into 46% shooting overall for the half.

We did end the second half with 7 straight stops after UWM was up by 12, which was pretty important in keeping the game close.

Coach went on at length in the post-gamer about "playing tag" and how you can't just trade baskets with a team, because then the pressure is always on the offense.  We're just not going to win that way.  But, we did get to see that Jordan Crawford is really tough on the ball, and if we can continue to improve our team defense, I think we can compete in the MAC.  UWM would be a good MAC team, although not necessarily a favorite (and they are playing without the top returning player).

Looking at the numbers, we are not surprised that this game ended up in overtime....

NCAA Basketball Stats

Again, this was our first evenly matched game of the season, and we showed some strong things, and some things that definitely have to be improved.  It was great to be back in AA again.