The Falcons finished out MAC West play with a loss Saturday, as they failed to capitalize on a very strong offensive first half and eventually dropped a winnable road game at CMU. BG is now tied for 3rd in the MAC and 1.5 games back of the Golden Flashes. If the season ended today, BG would earn a bye due to their win over Buffalo, but, of course, there is one more game in that set.
CMU is a team that has shot 38% for the season. Last night they shot 49% overall and 40% from 3. (Their season average is about 32%). CMU scored 1.04 points per possession, well above their season average.
They were also dominated on the offense boards again, and this time could not force enough turnovers to undo all that, and what you are left with is a road loss.
Bowling Green shot 67% in the first half, but led by only 6 at the break. In fact, BG made 9 of its first 11 shots, meaning that after that BG was 16 of 41, which is right in the neighborhood of 25%. BG also had more turnovers than CMU did, (by 1).
Even so, that's enough production in total to win the basketball game, if you defend effectively, which BG did not. Trey Zeigler hit 8 of his 13 shots (18 points), Jalin Thomas shot poorly but got to the line, and Derek Jackson tripled his season average with 17 points, including 3 of 5 from beyond the arc. Zeigler added 8 rebounds as well.
For BG, Dee Brown had a great game, scoring 20 points on 7 of 10 shooting to go with 5 assists, A'uston Calhoun had 15 (and 6 rebounds) and Jakubowski had 12. Scott Thomas struggled to score but led the game with 9 rebounds. He was held without a steal for the first time since the Duquesne game. He has been out of double figure scoring for the last 2 games, after 9 straight in double figures.
Calhoun's points came in only 26 minutes, as he battled foul trouble. The remainder of Bowling Green's inside game appeared to have a pretty lackluster night, as did the guards behind Jakubowski and Brown.
BG has not lost 2 of 3, and come back into the East needing to recapture the play that took them through the East the first time. They went 4-2 against the West, true, but so did everyone. Literally, no East team lost more than twice in a crossover game. BG struggled with some teams that were not strong.
I think we know this team has ability, they just need to find the things they were doing early on to win some big games. Buffalo on the road and Miami both look like nice wins now. They don't have much time to worry about it, as Akron comes back around Tuesday. I think that's probably good, and hopefully our guys are itching to get back onto the floor.
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