Detroit Merciless

The question right now around the men's basketball program is whether BG is better than they are predicted to be.  I have felt like they would be...and there was an early result which indicated that it might be true...but the two games in Detroit showed precisely the opposite.  We may be who they thought we were.

The first thing was the buzzer beater over Hampton, who went on to lose by 9 to Loyola Maryland in the second game.  I think it is safe to say that Hampton would be a lower ranked MAC team and BG barely beat them on a neutral floor and was handled most of the way.

The second thing was last night, where the Detroit Titans pummelled the Falcons 82-67...and the game actually wasn't that close.  This is a Titan team that five months ago had 3 people, and they are trouncing us.  Meanwhile, we dig a hole with the Jans transition and THREE SEASONS later we're still in the hole.

It was a home game for UD, I understand that.  But, you don't expect to get trounced like that.  UD scored at will, especially on 3FGs and they played a 2-3 zone, which BG cannot handle, despite facing it at least once every season.

The Titans have one young man who is a player.  Antoine Davis is a handful.  A freshman, he scored 32 points on 11 of 21 and 8 of 12 from beyond the arc (!!), which is just amazing.  He also had 6 rebounds and 6 assists.  This kid could lead the country in scoring and he's not a ball hog.  Yes, he takes a lot of shots, but they fall, too.  Coach noted in his post-game interview that BG did some things to stop him in the second half, which brings up the question about why we didn't do those things in the first half.  He's a proven scorer and the shooting in the first half put the game away.  (BG actually won the second half.)

One thing we learned is that BG needs Wiggins in the game.  There's no backup that BG has confidence in...Mattos only played a couple minutes.  BG was down 8 when Wiggins left the game with his second foul with 11 minutes left, and Detroit outscored BG by 11 for those 11 minutes.

Coach said that our issue was that we missed too many open looks.  The Falcons certainly did not execute on offense, scoring .94 per possession.  That's 43% on 2FG and 21% on 3FG.  Last year, the D1 averages were 50% on 2FG and 35% on 3FG.  Wiggins and Turner were 5 of 14 and Frye was 5 of 12, for example.

Here's the way it panned out.  BG was out shot from the field and at the line.  UD made 17 FTs and BG made 8.  As Todd Walker noted, you can usually rebound against a zone, and BG did that, but normally those turn into second chance shots right at the rim, and BG shooting percentage did not appear to be that good.

Individually, the best thing to happen was that Matiss Kulackovskis got some minutes and performed well.  He was 4 of 8 and 1 of 2 from 3FG and 4 rebounds in 13 minutes.  Coach said that he actually runs a certain OB play the way Coach wants...Coach said this before when he had the football players, that they actually rolled to the basket as directed...I don't think it's a good sign that the players don't execute the plays the way the Coach asks them to.

Wiggins had 13 and 9, but shot poorly as noted above.  Frye had 13 and Turner 11, also on poor shooting.

The other player who did have a good game was Plowden.  He scored 10 on 4 of 6 shooting and had 13 rebounds.  In his case, and in Matiss' case, I think BG needs to find ways to get minutes down the lineup.

It was ugly.  No doubt about it.  BG is 3-3 and plays Drexel Sunday.  They are 2-2 with a win four-point loss @EMU, one of the projected favorites in the MAC West.