That was painful to watch. The Falcons started slow, played a slow middle and finished slow, on their way to a 58-49 defeat at the hands of Youngstown State. Were it not for lousy free throwing shooting by the Penguins, this could been very ugly. It was still an ugly loss--the Falcons never held a lead and were never within six in the second half.
Not that YSU is a bad team but they are not unbeatable and it was a home game for us. This is not a game BG should have been sure to win. Even so, it was such a poor effort that it has to be disappointing. It was our lowest point total since we played MSU in 10-11. They aren't Michigan State.
BG played pretty well on defense. In fact, BG held them well below their scoring average. The troubles came when BG had the ball.
With 6:30 left, it was 48-37 for Youngstown. I asked the person with me, not whether BG could catch up but whether we could even score 48. In other words, had we shut them out for the last 6:37, could we win? And the answer is pretty much no. We did score 49 but didn't get there until we had a garbage layup in the last seconds. The answer, more or less, was NO.
BG scored .79 points per possession, which is their worst since the WKU game last year. This game was all about shooting. BG had only 10 turnovers, so that isn't what was keeping BG from getting baskets. BG shot 31% from the field and 14% from beyond the arc, both dreadful numbers. BG had effective FG% of 32.8 which is their worst since the Temple game in December 2009.
At the beginning of the year, I called us back to the MAC tourney game at the Stroh where CMU guarded Calhoun like crazy and challenged BG to do something else. In the Detroit game this week, BG was able to win under that kind of circumstance because Jordon Crawford had a career night. The YSU game was not like that.
Every time Calhoun got the ball, they ran double and triple teams on him. Jordon Crawford was struggling to shoot and no one else picked up the slack and that is how you score 49 points. Coach said after the game that we don't need another Calhoun or Crawford, we just need the guys we have to pick up what is there...which they did not. Orr/Kraus was 0-7, Sealey 1-5, Clarke 2-5, Holmes 2-5...you get the idea.
Calhoun ended up with 12 points and 7 rebounds. However, he was 5-13 shooting and had a offensive rating of 82. Crawford had 16, however in similar fashion he was 6-19 shooting (0-6 from 3) had an offensive rating of 69. He also had 2 assists and 4 turnovers.
As you can see, did hold an advantage on turnovers, but was dominated on the boards and in getting to the line, though their poor shooting netted it out to a +1 point differential.
So, a pleasant surprise Tuesday is followed by disappointment Saturday. Coach didn't have much to say....just that we have to learn from the game. That's about the only way to look at it, I guess. Tuesday was who we hope to be and Saturday is who we feared we be. If you are one of the many detractors of our program and coach, this was just more of the same. I continue to hope that Coach Orr can turn this team around and bring the program back into the highest competitive levels of the MAC.
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