Games where a team turns the ball over 20 times and shoots 35% from the field and 15% from beyond the arc are going to be losing games. You can't play defense that well.
Akron continues mind-boggling domination over BG. That's 11 in a row and 20 out of the last 21. That's like the kind of runs teams used to put on Northwestern in football. This is a conference opponent and it just shouldn't be that way. It extends back past Orr, in fact. Anyway, it was more of the same last night at the JAR.
This one was not a cardiac job. Akron--playing without Reggie McAdams and Jake Kretzer--pulled away in the last 10 minutes for the comfortable win. At the 11:24 mark, Cam Black made a layup to tie the game at 34. The next time BG made a basket, there was 6:22 left on the clock. Miraculously, Akron was only ahead by 7. The next time after that when BG scored was with 3:27 left, and by then Akron led by 11 and it was all over. Not to put too fine a point on it, but from 11 minutes to 3 minutes BG scored 4 points.
The deficit was never closer than 9 from then on in.
In the 11 minutes after the game was tied, Akron outscored BG 23-13.
Individually, Holmes had 14 points on 6 of 13 shooting, adding 9 rebounds and 4 blocks. Cam Black had a nice night, double-double, with 10 points on 5 of 8 shooting and 11 rebounds. They were pretty much the only players with a solid stat line. Jehvon Clarke scored 9 on 4 of 12 shooting with 2 assists over 5 turnovers. Spencer Parker only got 4 shots off, Henderson was 1 of 8, Tisdale was 0 of 4. Sealey played only 6 minutes.
Nobody had a good day with turnovers. Clarke 5 and Parker, Holmes and Black with 4 each.
BG got a small break in that NIU and Miami both lost. Kent, however, won. BG is in 10th. In terms of getting a home berth, BG needs to beat two of the three teams ahead of them and BG trails them all by 1 with 2 to play....NIU, Kent or Miami. As we have noted, head to head tie-breakers are not good for BG.
The first question is, can BG make it with 1 win at 7-11.
I can't see how they can. Either Kent or Miami is going to end up with 8 wins, which means BG would have to beat the other two teams. BG would lose (and finish 3rd) in either of the 3-way tie breakers that could occur.
So, BG needs to win out. Let's pause and remember that would require BG to beat OU and then win @UB, so those odds are slim to start with. Let's say it happened.
BG could make it. If Miami and NIU lost out, then BG would actually finish in a tie with Kent and finish in 7th.
If Miami beats Kent, then Kent and NIU could lose out and BG would make it, in 8th this time.
The key is BG needs two of those teams to lose out to have a shot, as far as I can see. The 3-way tiebreakers are not friendly to BG. Either Kent or Miami has to win one more game. NIU plays Ball State.
Anyway, you can see...the odds are very long. If I had to predict, I'd have BG in 10th going to NIU or Kent, probably Kent due to their wins over Akron and OU.
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