Falcon Men Open Stroh Center With Win...

So, the Stroh Center opened today with a Falcon win, as BG went wire to wire in front of 3,476 and avenged last year's loss to the Bison.

BG ended up winning by 15 and never trailed.  My observation was that BG played man for the entire game for the first time since DD prowled the BG sidelines, but on the postgame show Coach Stone said that they went to the zone for one possession, got lit up by a 3, and then went right back to the man.

We'll find out how much of the defensive success was the opposition and how much was BG truly bringing a stifling defensive game, but Howard certainly had trouble scoring.  They went the first 10 minutes without scoring a FG, and ended up with only 48 points.

We'll have more tomorrow.  I do think Howard is better when they were last year, and BG beat them this year comfortably, so that is pleasing.  The defense was good against FGs and in getting turnovers.  On the "needs work" side of the ledger, BG had very Falcon-like stretches where they could not get baskets and they were killed on the boards, getting only six offensive rebounds and being out-rebounded by 11 overall.  Finally, BG got extremely little production out of the two starting big men.

On the plus side, Craig Sealey had a really nice game, with 13 points on 5-9 shooting and 6 rebounds in 26 minutes....along with two monster dunks.  Jordan Crawford had some nice plays but struggled with his.

Anyway, there is no such thing as a bad 15 point win in front of our biggest crowd in a long time.