UT Debacle....More

Can't stop looking at this....excellent story from John Wagner just posted.  Give Huger credit...he's pretty blunt.  Read the article.  Key quote:  "The starting lineup is next."

Honestly, you could probably find 10 "superlatives" to rank the game.  I put some up last night, here are a couple more.

BG last allowed 100 in a regulation length MAC game was against Ball State in February of 1998, the first year Dan Dakich coached the Falcons.  That was a home game.

Per the Blade, UT hasn't shot that well in 15 years.  15 years.

It is the biggest winning margin for UT in the rivalry.

The last team to get more than 1.44 points per possession against BG was Xavier in 2010.

It was a complete disaster.

At least we didn't have to hear that the issue was overconfidence.

For the NIU game, I didn't put the stats chart up because, you know, it looks exactly like you'd expect it to look.  But for this one, here it is.

It's actually not as bad as you would think.  BG had a slightly average offensive night, but you never know how much of that was the fact the game had been over for so long.  (Kenpom says UT hit 99% win probability with about 3 minutes left in the first half.

That shooting though.  Ouch.  Also, they came in as a poor offensive rebounding team and they had a big day doing that and usually it was a dunk put back.  Think about this....they hardly missed at all and more than one-third of the time they did, they got the board.

There were a couple positives.  Coach had high praise for our "young" guys.  Not sure who that refers to....is Dylan Frye included in that, for example?  Freshman Daeqwon Plowden represented, that's for sure.  He had 11 points in 18 minutes on 4 of 7 shooting.  Freshman Derek Koch had 13 points in 21 minutes after not starting for the first time all year.  He shot 4 of 8.  Both players had four rebounds.  Justin Turner struggled to shoot but had 6 assists on BG's 22 baskets scored by people other than him.

The thing about this "young guy" thing is it worked better when he was struggling with the Orr/Jans refugees, but now that all the players came with Huger it's a little tougher to accept.

Anyway, BG gets two home games next week to try and reverse this slide.  OU and Kent.  Both should be beatable at home, but we've not played well at home and right now are nowhere close to winning a MAC game.  Let's hope it comes around.