Friday, February 15, 2019

Early Superlatives for this season

I think we definitely want to keep our success this year in perspective...which is to say that we are experiencing uncommon success for our program in recent years.  It's fun, and even more fun given that we just haven't been that competitive over the last 15 years or so.

I have typically used 2002 as a benchmark...pre-WVU and post-WVU.  Not that the West Virginia things caused the problems, but that is a clear and distinct marker between the last time we had a true MAC title competitor and now.  This is the 17th season included in that "era" and it just hasn't been pretty.  One MAC regular season title, for example.

There were really only 3 successful years in that 17.

2005:  BG goes 18-11, lost a chance to win the division late.
2009:  BG goes 19-14, wins regular season MAC.
2015:  BG goes 21-12, wins first post-season game in forever.

And then this year.

So, BG has 17 wins.  That's the highest in the Huger Era.  It is also a win total BG has reached only 3 times since 2002.  As you can see above, if BG gets 5 more wins (with 7 to play, plus tournament) it would be the most wins in that period.

BG has 9 MAC wins.  Highest in the Huger era.  Again, with 7 yet to play. Even so, BG has only won 9 MAC games ALL YEAR 4 times since 2002.  (Note, for some of those years the MAC season was 16 games and sometimes it was 18).

BG has clinched a winning season.  As hard as it is to imagine, BG has only 3 winning seasons since 2002.  There were a couple even .500 seasons, but only 3 winning seasons.  That's just a very average to below average program for those years.

So this year's success is a revival of the program, in the truest sense of the word.  I also believe we have the ability to continue the success in the future.

Of course, we know that BG has not been to the tournament since 1968.  BG has not even played in the final since 2002.  Only BSU, EMU, and NIU have gone longer than that.

Anyway, this ride isn't over yet.  Could erase all those things.  Just want fans to appreciate where we are, where we've been, and enjoy the ride.

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