Falcon Men Heartbroken Again

That was some week of March basketball.  Sadly, though it came soooo close to being otherwise, it ended up with 2 BG defeats and a #5 finish.

And while everyone is disappointed not to have gotten a bye, and while the trip to a MAC Title is much, much harder than if one of those games had turned up a win, you have to have some perspective.

If you had told me on the day Chris Jans was hired that this would be the result he got out of that team, I would have taken it all day long.  As heartbreaking as each of these two losses were, they should not detract from a great effort by our boys this year.  And in time they won't.

In the same vein, if you had told me at tip off yesterday that BG would play without an injured Richaun Holmes for 24 minutes and still lead the game inside of :30 left to play, I would have told you that was not possible.

Yet, that is exactly what happened.  Without their star player, their BG player, BG battled a very hot Buffalo team in front of a capacity crowd until the very last second.  I feel so badly for our seniors.  They were THAT CLOSE to capping off what has been a frustrating career with a signature win they could have talked about for the rest of their lives.  They left nothing on the court, put everything they had to it and played heroically.  In the end, it was just one basket short.

I'm 100% proud of the season.  That was an incredible effort by the Falcons and I'm proud of them.

Check this out.

NCAA Basketball Stats

That right there is an example of what makes basketball such a great game. That's more than 20 minutes of nail-biting action on each and every possession.  Two teams, right on top of each other, slugging it out in front of a huge crowd with a lot on the line.  It was as good as it gets from an entertainment standpoint and would have only been made better with one more basket or one more stop.

It is hard to remember after all that that BG led by 11 points when Holmes went out and actually led by 14 a couple seconds later.  UB went on a scorching, 3-fueled 15-1 run to tie the game by the half.  It would have been easy for BG to check out at that point, especially because at some point they had to know that Holmes was out.  Instead, after closing the half out like that, BG settled in to trade punches and competed the whole way.

With 1:30 left, Buffalo went up 1 on a Moss and-one.  Spencer Parker was fouled and split the pair to tie the game.  BG then got a stop on a turnover and Pep Joseph drove to the basket and scored to put BG up 2 with :52 left.  Buffalo has a great offensive team, and Will Regan was shooting out of his mind last night and he nailed a 3 with :38 left to put the Bulls back up by 1--very similar to the dagger 3 Kent hit on Tuesday.

Even with that, BG came down the court and Joseph got another layup to put BG back up by 1 with :26 to play.  The Bulls were playing at a high level too, and their FR PG Lamonte Bearden hit a shot to put Buffalo back up 1.  BG came down the floor and Anthony Henderson was fouled with :08 left.  BG was still in the 1 and 1, and Henderson missed the FT.  BG had to foul and Moss made 1 of 2 of the FTs.

BG will down 2, came down, Clarke had the ball and Buffalo guarded him with Moss to keep Clarke from launching a 3.  Clarke dribbled the ball off Moss' foot and it went OB.  There were fractions of seconds left and a crazy set of inbound passes occurred, resulting in nothing and UB had the win.

Again, an incredible game and a great effort by the Falcons.  To understand how heartbreaking...if whatever minute thing would have had to happen for BG to win had happened, BG would have finished #2 and had a bye UNTIL FRIDAY and been two wins from the NCAA tournament.  Now, they need 5 wins in 6 days.

They were so close and it was a second crushing, heartbreaking defeat in the same week...what a week.