Falcons Capture Privateers, Walk them down the plank, etc

BG played a team that was completely outmatched last night at the Stroh Center.  And, for the first time this year, BG actually followed through and made an outmatched team look outmatched.  After struggling with Central State in an exhibition and then Lake Erie in the season opener, BG blew New Orleans out tonight by 31 after leading by as much as 39.

I will say this...the Privateers played a classy game.  They showed respect for themselves...they weren't chippy and they weren't just jacking shots up.  They played hard...their coach even mopped the floor up.  This is a really tough situation to be in for them, and it can't be easy to keep going through this.

Five minutes in UNO was holding its own and was only down 12-8.  By the time there was 11:33 left, BG had the lead extended to 20-10.  BG was up 12 with about 3 minutes left and then hit a couple layups in the last minutes to lead by 17 at halftime.  BG came out of the locker room on a 17-4 run that spanned just over 4 minutes and at that point the route was on.

College Basketball Stats

First of all, it was a pretty uptempo game with 72 possessions.  The only games BG has played with more possessions had overtimes.  Even with that, BG scored 1.21 points per possession, which was their best offensive game of the season.  (Next best was Huntsville).  BG had only 8 turnovers in an uptemo game (11% of possessions, a season best) and shot over 52% on Effective FG%.  That's 46% for all FG and 45% from 3FG.  BG also got 41% of the available offensive rebounds (3rd best this season), and when you have a situation where you don't turn the ball over and you make shots and when you don't you get the rebound 2 times out of 5 you are going to score some points.

BG also dominated on the other side.  UNO scored only .78 points per possession, which is the 4th best of the season.  The stats sort of become repetitive...they are exactly what you would expect for a game that was this one-sided.

College Basketball

Individually, BG was able to get a lot of guys in.  No one played more than 25 minutes.  Crawford ended up with 16 on 7 of 11 shooting.  Calhoun had 16 on 5 of 11 shooting and 6 rebounds.  Chauncey Orr had 12, Black 8 with 8 boards, Holmes 9 with 10 rebounds.

BG is now 11-15 and 9-15 in D1 games.  They play the Mastadons of IPFW on Saturday in the Bracket Buster and then rejoin the MAC race, which as we covered yesterday, still has potential for the Falcons.  They will leap right into a game they absolutely must have, which is Miami at the Stroh.

Anyway, the take away from the New Orleans game is that BG had a game where they were clearly better and it looked like it.