Falcon MBB Wins over NIU in Montgomery's last game

Well, there you go.  BG MBB beat NIU yesterday--convincingly in the end--and then, looky here, away goes Mark Montgomery.

A bit on that.  It's hard to understand.  Look, he's been there 10 years and I don't think he would have lasted that many years at most MAC schools.  They have OK/decent once in a while.  But they have a good year last year, lose their all-time leading scorer and then start awfully this year (1-7) and NOW they fire him, in the middle of the season.

Hard to understand.  I mean, two years ago I could have seen it.  ln March 2021 I could see it.  But now?  Can't see it.

Anyway.  That was his last game at NIU.

It was, no doubt, an ugly effort.

NIU knew they needed to control the tempo and they did a really good job of it.  The first half was plodding and tough...I expected to find out there were still seams on the ball.  The game was very close in the first half.  BG finally went on a mini-run at the end to lead by 5 at the half....23-18.

After the game, Montgomery said that Tyler Cochran--who is their best player and a tough matchup for us--hurt his hamstring late in the half.  He played only 4 minutes in the second half, in two short bursts.  It definitely had an impact on them.

BG shot 37% overall and 11% in the first half.  NIU shot 29% both overall and from 3FG, meaning they were 5 of 17 on 2FGs.

The first 5 minutes of the second half were more of the same.  NIU had it pruned back to 3 when BG launched onto the decisive run.  BG went on a 17-2 run that lasted from 15:53 to 9:36.  Part way through, they subbed Cochran back in but it didn't make a difference and he came out to stay when NIU called time at the end of the run.

BG had an interesting alignment on the floor during the run...most of it was Turner, Diggs, Plowden, Fields and Young.

Anyway, from there it was over.  BG was up 45-27, an 18 point lead when the team only had 27.  BG kept it on, pushing the lead to 28 before winning 68-42.

Ourch.  42 points.  That's the lowest against BG since 2013...against NIU.  It also equals .64 points per possession, which is the lowest by a BG opponent since the 2009 OU game that clinched the regular-season title for BG.

BG had a decent game at 1.04 points per possession, but not the offensive game they have been having.  There were only 65 possessions in the game.

As you can see, the #1 factor was decisive.  BG shot well--65% on 2FG and 27% on 3FG--while NIU shot horribly...33% and 18%.  They also turned the ball over a lot.  As always, they were good on the offensive boards but didn't seem to turn that back into 2FG shooting.  No one got to the line very much.

Justin Turner scored 20 points for the 45th time in his career.  He is 6 points behind Antonio Daniels on the career list.  He did it without a FT, shooting 9 of 14 and 2 of 4 from 3FG, which is very efficient.  They were doubling him off the ball screen and he didn't force things. Plowden had 12 on  3-5 from 2FG and 1 of 3 from 3FG, to go with 9 rebounds.  

Diggs had 11 on 3 of 4 from 3FG and Fields had 10 and 5 rebounds in 32 minutes after seeing limited minutes in Athens.

And, because I mentioned it last time, Metheny had 3 assists.

Staying on the youth front, Fulcher had 6 on 3 of 4 shooting and Young had 5 on 2 of 4 shooting.  Both played 15 minutes.  

Coach told Todd Walker that Chandler Turner was going to play more and he played 8 minutes and made his only shot.

BG is 3-0 in the MAC, tied with UT.  It is only the 5th time in 20 years that BG has won its first 3 MAC games...three of them under Huger.  With Huger, the test has been the last 3 games, not the first.  Anyway, BG will get culture shock now, moving from the slowest team in history to one of the fastest, the CMU-JUCOs.

That game is on Tuesday at BG.