BG MBB Loses 6th Straight

 And the beat goes on.  Sadly.

BG lost their sixth straight last night at home against Kent.  Yes, they played closer and BG had a chance to win at the end...on the other hand, this was at home and a Kent was playing without their second-leading scorer.  BG lost by 5 at Kent and then at home by 4 without Naga.  It's just an ongoing issue with winning a game.

That's 6 straight and 7of 8.  And Toledo on Saturday.

BG lost 6 in a row at the end of 18 and 7 in a row in 2016, on the way to losing 10 of 11 to closing out the season.

So, it's flashing back to some seasons we would rather not think about.

BG led for 11 minutes of the game, which is a big improvement over the past year.  Kent led for almost the entire second half. BG tied the game with 10 minutes left and then Kent took the lead back. 

BG was down 5 with 3 minutes left and Diggs hit a 3FG to get the lead down to 2.

Here, BG had chances to get capture the game.  They got 3 stops and had 3 empty possessions on the other end, including Turner and Plowden missing the front end of a 1-1. Kent had the ball with :45 left.  BG needed another stop.  Late in the shot clock, Kent had a Baseline In bounder and they got it to Pippen on the baseline, he was surrounded but he muscled up the shot and made it and it was  4-point lead.  Diggs missed a layup at the other end and that was that.

To be clear, not the worst performance of the streak, but not good enough.

It was fairly evenly matched.  Kent had 1.06 points per possession and BG had 1 point per possession, which is below average.  It's the same offensive efficiency BG had against WMU.  The biggest different was at the line. Kent completed only 10 FTs and BG shot only 8 FTs.  Their only two misses were those front-ends in the stretch run.

Meanwhile, BG had 15 fouls, Kent had 13 FTs and made 12 of them.  So +6 at the line.

Trey Diggs had 18 points for BG, 2 of 4 from 2FG and 4 of 7 from 3FG and 5 rebounds.  

Justin Turner had 18 points, but it was a little bit of a struggle.  He made 6 of 12 on 2FG but 1 of 7 from 3FG.  He also had 5 assists. Daeqwon Plowden had 15 points on 3 of 7 on 2FG and 3 of 7 3FGs.  He added 8 rebounds.  Chandler Turner had 7 rebounds in 13 minutes.

BG is now 7th in the MAC.  With 7 losses, they are in the same neighborhood as WMU and EMU--who have more games to play.

It doesn't get easier.  Saturday is scheduled to be UT.