Falcons Continue Slide in Oxford

Ouch.

That was a very long afternoon in Oxford.  In a game that might have set the #maction cause back by 50 years to a day when there were laces on the ball, BG and Miami traded missed shots and turnovers in a game that was eventually decided because BG was whistled for 24 fouls and Miami was only whistled for 10.  Yeah, that's definitely going to leave a mark.

Anyway, the final was 55-51.  It is BG's 3rd straight loss and 5th in the last 6th.  This is a rough patch of the season--most times there is one.  We are seeing the team we kind of feared we might have over the past couple of weeks.  Having said that, there's still time to flip it around and not close out with a string of L's like we did in some of those awful Dakich years.

BG actually shot less poorly than Miami did yesterday.  BG shot 35% and 31%--both of which are awful--but Miami shot 31% and 20%.  It was a low tempo game (67 possessions), so BG with 16 turnovers and Miami with 14 is also pretty weak.  Miami crashed the offensive boards, (good strategy for any team that missed that much), but despite having 15 offensive rebounds, they had only 6 second chance points.  As mentioned, the difference is here to the far right.  Miami was 19 of 29 at the line while BG was 7 of 12.  That's +12 for the RedHawks and was the difference in the game.  In addition to rarely getting to the line, BG only made 58% when there.

I watched the game...I felt like that was a string of weak calls at one point but in general I thought BG was getting out of position and did commit a lot of fouls.

Individually, Demajeo Wiggins led the Falcons.  He had 12 points on 5 of 9 shooting and added 9 rebounds while playing only 20 minutes.  Spencer Parker had 11 points on 4 of 6 shooting and 5 rebounds.  He also had 4 turnovers and this was a game where you might have liked Parker to manage more than 6 shots for his struggling team.  Antwon Lillard had 10 on 4 of 8 shooting.

BG's relative position didn't change...BG is still in the 9th spot in the MAC, although it was previously a tie and now the Falcons have it all to themselves.  BG has two games with both of the top teams in the MAC remaining, so it won't be easy coming home, starting Tuesday with Akron at the Stroh.