Wednesday, February 03, 2016

BG Stops Making Baskets, Loses at Home Again

And the beat goes on...the home floor disadvantage continues to haunt the Falcons, who lost their fourth straight at home in what (as we will see later) was maybe the most disappointing of all.

This is unusual.  In the 2000's, BG has only had a losing record at home twice.  We're not there yet...BG is 6-5 right now, but Akron is next....anyway.

This one stings because BG has been struggling to make shots...and came out 54% in the first half...and BG put itself in a position to win the game against a team they should beat at home...the Falcons led by 14 with 15:00 left to play in the game.

You lead by 14, you'd want to win that game.

Everything that happened after that was back to being the team we were trying to avoid.  BG scored 17 points in the last 15 minutes.  That includes THREE field goals.  BG's last FG came with more than 6 minutes left to play.  BG did not score at all over the last 2:51.

That's just a disaster.  In the post-game, Coach Huger said he felt like we were getting open looks and just not making them.  That was true outside and inside...BG missed a ton of close-in looks, especially on second chances. It was just so fast...BG was shooting well and then in one second they couldn't make anything.

You can see it right here.  Ball State shot 50% from 2FG and 3FG which left them with an eye-popping 64% EFG, while BG was 38% and 38%.  Not good.  The shooting difference was so severe that it allowed Ball State to make up for being badly out-rebounded and the fact that BG was +10 on FTs,  Yes, BG lost a game by 8 points and they were +10 a the line.  The rebounding is a good example...Ball isn't great on the boards and BG was able to get rebounds but only had 7 second chance points, which isn't much to show for all that.


The sole offensive bright spot for the game for BG was Zack Denny, who broke out of a shooting slump and scored 20 points on 6 of 13 and 4 of 9 shooting.  He also had a career-high 13 rebounds.  Alcegaire scored 12, but on 3 of 8 shooting.  Spencer Parker had an especially long night, shooting 2 of 12 with 5 turnovers.  In fact, not counting his shots, BG shot 44%.

BG has a chance to get well on the road against Miami and they need it. As you can see here, BG right now would be on the road for the MAC tourney and still has two games with Akron and Buffalo, the top two teams in the MAC right now.  (I know we might be better off on the road for the tourney, but let's not shoot for that!)



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