The Falcons make the trip to Eastern Ohio today to take on the Kent State Golden Flashes. The East is, as usual, a rough road, and the trip to Kent on top of two losses in the MAC is a really tough assignment for BG.
Now, to preview the Flashes. We start with a simple fact. This program is incredibly resilient and consistent. Their track record over the past decade would be the envy of any team anywhere. This has stretched across numerous coaches, players, etc. They have just kept moving alone. Oh,yeah, and there's one Elite Eight performance in there.
That is a whole mess of 20 win seasons. Just for good measure, we can also see that they are historically very difficult to beat in Kent.
This season they are 10-6, but have played the country's 100th best schedule, so that's certainly not a bad record. Both their MAC games have been close, beating OU by 2 and losing to Miami by 2. Those were both road games, and this is their home opener in the MAC.
They have a nice win over a really good UAB team, as well as wins over very competitive Wofford. Every single one of their non-MAC losses is to a team with a RPI of 107 or better. Had they placed a couple of easier teams in there, they would easily have 13-14 wins.
Statistically their profile is shockingly similar to Bowling Green's. Check this out....
Now, their numbers were generated against the #100 schedule and BG is somewhere in the 180s, so that makes a difference.
Kent offers its usual very solid guard play, with Rodriguez Sherman and Tyree Evens leading the team with about 11 points a game, and Chris Singletary providing really solid senior leadership, with solid ball handling, being the MAC's active steals leader and he scores 9.8 points per game. The key assignment for our team will be for our guards to match up against these three really good players.
On top of that, Justin Greene is a 6'8" So Forward from Brooklyn who is actually leading the team in scoring.
They are the second most experienced team in the MAC, behind (barely) Buffalo. They have 9 players average 10 minutes or more a game.
Now, on the plus side, Kent is the worst 3-point shooting team in the MAC, so given our difficulties defending the trey, that has to be a relief. Their defensive numbers are nothing special, and they are a very average team on the boards.
They play a tempo very similar to the Falcons.
This is an experienced team on their home floor. Certainly, Kent has to be a strong favorite out there. Now, if BG gets a strong defensive performance and puts some of its offensive elements together, it has the ability to compete with this team. They due to exceed expectations and put together a really nice game.
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