Falcon MBB Crushed Again, this time by UT

Coach Herb Brooks once said his team was playing "worse every day and right now they're in the middle of next month."  That phrase would be very apt for the BG Men's Basketball team after they headed into Savage Saturday and were just completely embarrassed, losing 101-75 to their arch-rivals.

So, adding up the math, since BG had that lead with 12 minutes to play against CMU, they have been outscored 229-148 in 92 minutes of play.  

This is as bad a streak as we have seen in BG basketball in a long time.  From as far as I can tell, the last time we lost back-to-back MAC games by 20 or more was 2006, the second-to-last Dakich year.  BG ended the year losing by 37 to OU and then 25 to Toledo.  (That was rough, I had forgotten about it.  BG ended the year with 8 straight losses, with margins of 8, 15, 19, 16, 14, 14, 37 and 25).

Anyway, BG has now met that with back to back 25 point losses.  Going back to 2002, I can't find another time where we allowed 100 points in a regulation MAC game.  It may have never happened.

UT is a good team, no doubt.  In fact, our preview indicated that they are a really good shooting team that was set to be a tough matchup for us.  The problem with this is that as good as they have been up to know, this is the best they have been all season.  It was the best offensive game, 1.44 points per possession.  Next best was 1.31.  Their EFG was 74%, next best was 71%.  They shot 76% on their 2FGs and 44% on their 3FGs.

So they're good, but they were their best against us. 

The UT offense completely shredded the BG defense.  Yes, they made some tough shots.  But they made a lot more open ones.  When they didn't need a 3, they often ended up with a layup after a little ball movement.  BG had no one who could guard Fletcher.  He scored 26 points on 12 of 15 shooting, plus 12 rebounds and 8 assists.

It was a complete disaster.  Wiggins played only 13 minutes and Coach made reference in the post-game interview to "needing to play defense."

UT is better than us.  You should never lose games like this in the conference.  And you should never have your arch-rival having their best game of the season against you.  The Falcons are reeling in a way we have not seen in a long time.  Yes, the team is young.  But, you'd like to get better as the season goes along, and the opposite appears to be happening.

This has got to get turned around, because right now this is beginning to feel like another lost chapter in the book of BG's MBB program.