Falcons Make Shots, Beat Kent

The Falcons really needed a win today, and they were in the kind of place a team doesn't want to be when it needs a win, and that's in Kent, Ohio, take on the Flashes.

Fortunately, for the Falcons, some things came together and the team was able to pick up a big win, avoid going 0-3 in MAC play, and bring us home next week with a shot at evening things at 2-2.

(As an aside, Buffalo smoked Akron, so that close game the other night might look a little better).

It was a really compelling victory.  BG bolted out to an 11-0 lead, but then Kent rallied back and led by 7 at the half.  They came out of the locker and got an old-school three point play, and they were up 10.  You could kind of feel the Flashes getting their feet under them, and getting ready to put the Falcons away with a nice run.

Instead, the Falcons got the next 8 points and brought the lead to 2, and then Kent never led by 6 again.  They did, however, have a 6-point lead with 3:40 left.  From there, they got only one more meaningful FG as the Falcons closed with a hard rush to win the game.  The two key plays came when Dee Brown drilled a 3 with 1:04 left to give BG the lead for good, and then on the next KSU possession, Erik Marschall made a steal, went to the floor to corral it, and bumped it forward to Scott Thomas who raced down and scored to give BG a 4 point lead.

Just to say that for us to play a close game over such a long period on the road is a real accomplishment for our team, and then to win the time from the last media timeout home is even bigger.  I haven't had the chance to prove this with numbers, but it is said that inside the last two media timeouts, road teams tend to wilt.  But today, the Falcons had more to bring.

College Basketball

In some ways, the Falcons showed some of the same weaknesses they have in their past few games.  Kent is a lousy 3-point shooting team, but they hit 11 threes, with is more than the other teams did.  BG also made a ton of turnovers (19).

But, Kent shot under 40% from the field for the game and averaged 1 point per possession.  But most importantly, the Falcons covered all that up by making some baskets.  BG shot 51% for the game and 50% from beyond the arc, which nets out to 58% effective FG%.  The Falcons were also 16-18 from the line, the best in a four-game streak of really good free throw shooting.

I wrote after the last game that BG gets good performances here and there, but needed to get a couple of them together in the same game.  Today, that came from Scott Thomas, who scored 27 points, and Dee Brown, who scored 21.  Those two sophomores both had huge games when the team needed it, and they helped to carry the team to the win.

Joe Jakubowski had 11 assists and Erik Marschall contributed 4 FGs from the post when that was really needed.

As you can see below, good shooting was the clear difference in this game.

College Basketball

So with the victory, BG now has OU coming to town, and with a win there, they get can get to even in the MAC.  For today, it was a really nice win for our guys in a tough place to win.  BG battled the whole way, and ended up getting a resilient win.