MAC Tournament Preview, Bronco Style

The Falcons enter into the MAC tournament tomorrow with a game at Kalamazoo.   It certainly will be a test of our resilience, which is typically pretty good.  The OU game was pretty grim, and, in fact, the Kent game wasn't a lot better, so coming down the stretch we have been struggling here and there...which is how we ended up on the road, and in last place in the East, in the first place.

All is not, in fact, lost.  BG should have beaten WMU the first time we played in Kalamazoo, and only a steal in the last 5 seconds cost BG a victory.  For a lot of other reasons, it looks to me to be a pretty evenly matched game.

It is not an easy assignment.  WMU is 11-3 at home this year, so we could have been cheating the odds earlier.  WMU is very good at home, and their struggles this season have come due to road issues.  Still, their RPI is 161, and BG is 181, and they are just over .500 on a comparable schedule to the one Bowling Green played.

My tournament preview will be up in the morning, but either BG or Western has a decent shot to make the semi-finals, with CMU looming once everyone gets to the Q.  That should help to make the contest interesting tomorrow.

In fact, statistically, the two teams are essential mirror images of each other.  I don't have access to the usual charts because it is a tournament game, but suffice it to say that the numbers on both sides are very close, when looking at conference games only.  Further, one of BG's achilles heels has been the 3-point shot, and WMU is not especially good in that area.

You can't talk about WMU without talking about David Kool who, thanks heavens, is playing his last game against BG tomorrow, one way or the other.  He's a really good shooter, he draws fouls and he makes 90% of the free throws when he gets there.  He is #6 in the NCAA in free throws made.  He had 23 points the first time BG played them, including the game winning layup.

That game was (wait for it) pretty even statistically as well, but BG shot 56.7% on 2 point field goals, which means we were getting the ball inside.  We got good shooting from Otis and Erik Marschall in that game...and if you want one key, it will be our ability to get the ball inside and, in large part, the ability of Otis to play as he has been lately.  We are a completely different team when he is on the top of his performance range.