The last coach to start his career 3-0 at Bowling Green was a guy named Harold Anderson. So, there's that. We're still in the land of managed expectations, but as we learn more about this team, I think we see an improved Falcon team. Southeast Missouri looked to me to be a pretty good team...Bradley is a good player and Johnson is a big match-up problem that I'm surprised they didn't use more. Anyway, it was a nice win for BG and we're not in a position to look down our nose at wins.
BG bolted out to a 10-2 lead before the first media time out, which was great to see. The RedHawks had the game tied with 8 minutes left and it bounced back and forth from there with BG leading at halftime by 3. The second half was also very competitive, and with about 11 minutes left the game was tied at 38. Jovon Austin hit a FT to give BG the lead that, in fact, they would never relinquish for the remainder of the game.
Even with that, the game remained competitive. BG had a couple opportunities to stretch the lead but failed. With 7 minutes left BG was up 8, but SEMO went on a 6-1 to get the lead back to 3 and with 1:54 left in the game BG was up 2. Then, BG did what they so often failed to do last season, which was close out the game. Jovon Austin got in the lane and hit a runner and then Zack Denny got a steal on the other end. BG was fouled, Austin hit both FTs and BG had a 4 point lead with inside a minute left and from there it was just fouls and the Falcons won 62-54. BG's lead in the last minute was the biggest in the entire game.
Looking at the team stats, neither team had a great offensive game. BG scored .99 points per possession while SEMO had .86. Holding a team to .86 is a winning effort any day of the week, while .99 is below average but good enough to win on this day. It was an odd day, because the most important part of the four factors in shooting, and BG was outshot by SEMO...BG was only 2 of 13 from 3FG, while SEMO was 6 of 15, which accounts for most of the spread between the two teams. However, the Falcons made the ground up on taking much better care of the ball and doing a much better job on the offensive boards.
BG had only 2 players in double figures for scoring. Richaun Holmes had 14 points on 6 of 14 shooting and 7 rebounds for a very strong performance. Spencer Parker had 10 points on 4 of 7 shooting and 4 rebounds. Dickerson also had 7 boards and Joseph contributed 4 assists. Zack Denny--who has the chance to be a really, really good player--had 9 points, 5 rebounds and 3 steals in 28 minutes.
That doesn't really tell the whole story. I've noted before that Akron guys rarely have huge stats because the minutes are so well distributed. For BG, 10 players scored yesterday out of 11 who played. The one who didn't was Joseph, who had 4 assists. 10 Falcons played 10 minutes or more....point is, with minutes being so well distributed, the stats won't be high and you will have to view them in terms of efficiency within the time played.
I'll have some more general observations later, but for now, enjoy the results. BG now plays @Detroit, who went into Savage and beat the Rockets last night.
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