Utah Valley Preview

 So this is one of those games.

When it popped onto the schedule, people in BG were probably like, who?

And people in Orem UT were saying, who?

It's a pretty good mid-major matchup, the best since UC came in 2019 in the last year of the Frack Challenge.

I am looking forward to it.

Orem is named after a railroad magnate in Utah.

In addition to fantasy-football-disaster Rome Oduze, Donny and Marie Osmond are listed as notable residents.

The University is an open enrollment university with 48,000 students enrolled.  It is one of the biggest universities in the Rockies region.

And yes, it was where Charlie Kirk was killed.

In 2003, they were still competing as a junior college.  Amazingly, they moved from JUCO to D1 directly.

They have had some pretty good coaches.  Dick Hunsaker was the first and eventually coached at Ball State.  His replacement was named Mark Pope. Then Mark Madsen, who is now at Cal...and now Todd Phillips, who was elevated from the staff but won a national NJCAA title at Salt Lake CC.

He has won 62% of his games with the Wolverines.  They won the regular season title last year at 25-9 and 15-1 before losing to Grand Canyon in the conference final.

BG has never played Utah Valley.  Todd Simon was 4-1 against them at Southern Utah. 

They play in the WAC, which I think a lot of us thought was out of business until we hired Coach Simon.  In fact, last year they were the #15 conference (vs. the MAC, #23) and this year #16, while the MAC is #13 (which is interesting.  We'll see).  Don't get used to it.  By next year, UVU will be in the Big West.

UVU was picked #2 in the WAC poll and #4 by Blue Ribbon.   (By the way, Southern Utah is DFL). 

As would be expected, they lost their top 3 scorers to P4 schools.

They started the year with a KenPom of 111, and it's up to 89.  That would be 2nd in the MAC to Akron.

They are 5-3 and 3-3 in D1 games. The wins are over UC-Irvine by 7, South Dakota State (163) by 27 on a neutral floor, and Samford (240) by 44 on a neutral floor. Losses @Boise (61), @Fresno by 1 (160), and @San Diego State this week (47) by 11.

Offensively, they score 1.07 points per possession, which is the D1 average.  They focus on 2FGs...they take only 34% from 3FG.  They make 57% from 2FG (69) and 36% from 3FG (81).  Overall shooting is #55).  They are, however, terrible at protecting the ball (#312), average on offensive rebounds and poor at getting to the line and #332 at making FTs.

Their calling card is defense.  They are #58 in the nation, allowing only .98 point per possession.  It's a difficult combo...they are #62 in defending the shot and #61 in forcing turnovers.  They defend the 3FG and the 2FG equally well. They are average on the defensive boards, and they do get teams to the line. They are #37 in the nation in block% and #20 in steals.

They are long...#92 in the country in average height.  BG is #81.

Their leading scorer is Jackson Holcombe, a 6'7" F who is organically a Wolverine. He's scoring 15.6 PPG on 61% 2FG shooting.  He also leads the team with 7.3 RPG per game, 30 assists and a team-high 19 steals.

Tyler Hendriks scores 13 PPG.  He's a 6'6" transfer from UCF.  That's 41% on 2FG but a scorching 55% from 3FG.

Trevon Leonhardt is a 6'5" G who has spent his entire career at UVU.  He leads the team with 49 assists and scores 12.8 PPG. He makes 59% on 2FG and 41% on 3FG. He also has 17 steals.

This is going to be a good test for us.  BG is favored by 1.5.  Hope BG fans realize and head out to see our guys in a real test.

Football Update

Well.  A very action-packed couple of days for the football program.

There's signing day, with good news.  A presser with more clues. The All-MAC teams...and then, well, whomp-whomp, people began to announce they were heading into the portal.

Let's start with the recruiting.

All normal caveats apply here.  Ratings can be unreliable, especially for MAC-level players.  Also, Mike Jinks had a #2 ranked class in 2017...you can scan the class here and see how many you recognize.

Even with all that, it's a data point. And in this one, BG ended up with the #2 ranked class overall in the MAC and the #1 rating per player.  It doesn't decide anything...but it represents progress.

Again, using 247 numbers, the top ten recruits in the 247-era for BG had 6 of them sign yesterday.  For full info on each of the guys, check here.

We have been following this and covered these guys when they committed.  We had two guys we expected who did not sign--Jordan Tarver, who announced he was opening his recruiting and then Isaiah Hayward, a WR from Whitmer from which no one has heard anything publicly.

We had two late additions.  One was Travis Robertson, and he becomes, again by the ranking, the #2 recruit we have ever had.

He's a 6'5", 320 pound OL that we had once.  He flipped to UCLA and then we flipped him back. That has the potential to be big...he could even contribute right away at a position of severe need.

The other was Samuel Roussos, who we talked about a couple days ago.

Every player we signed has 3 stars...that's never happened.

Now, it needs to be turned into wins.  But for now, this is a big day for our program.

Coach had his presser today.  There was a lot of stuff about leadership, meeting families, character, etc.  It's important, but you can watch that if you want.

The key was the talk about the portal.  To be clear, he is going to look for a QB, OL and WRs in the portal.  And they are all needed.  As much as they might like Jarin Mock, they don't want to throw him right into the fires.  So starting 1/2, that will be worth watching.

The All-MAC team came out.  The headline was Cameron Pettaway being the MAC FR of the Year.  This is wholy deserved.  I hope we see him again next year.  

Lampron and Jyrin Johnson were also well-deserved members of the first team. Pettaway made it as the returner. 

Also, OL Nate Pabst and PK Jackson Kleather on the second team, while CB MJ Cannon and CB Jalen McClendon earned third-team recognition.

Not bad, it's what you would expect for a team with two league wins.  FWIW, only 3 of those players signed with BG out of HS.

Soooo.  Now, the literal worst part of the year.  Watching guys march into the portal.  These are the players far.  Moses, Eklund, Goodloe and Stocksdale did not get many snaps for us this year.

The others.  Starting with kind of heart-breaker, as Jacob Harris entered the portal.  Given everything, you'd hope to hold him, but if it's going to be a business, he is as entitled as the next guy to make his move.  Caden Marshall moved up when Pringle was injured and did pretty well.  Chris Edmonds didn't play too much, but Chris McMillian was the lead RB to start the year and ended up sidelined by the end. Finally, RJ Garcia played a lot but was part of our underperforming WR unit.

DT	Malik Moses
LB	Justin Eklund
LB	Caden Marshall
RB	Chris Edmonds
RB	Chris McMillian
TE	Jacob Harris
WR	Reis Stocksdale
WR	Caleb Goodloe
WR	RJ Garcia

 There will be more.  Such is the road we travel.

Commit....Portal...and Signing Day...

This commit is Samuel Dossous, a DE/Edge from Massillon HS.

Listed at 6'4" and 225 pounds, he also had offers from Kent and Miami.

He was named to the all-county team in a county where football is King.  Beyond that, there are a number of stories about his wreaking havoc with sacks, TFL and forced fumbles.

The Falcons have their first player in the portal...Justin Ecklund.  He is a LB transfer from San Jose State, who made one start but played sparingly, making 7 total tackles on the year.

Samuel, welcome to the Falcons.  Justin, best of luck to you.

Tomorrow is signing day. The BG football feed does a pretty good job of posting every time a document comes in.  Feel free to check it out, and then tomorrow night, we'll look at what happened.  Presumably, there will be guys who committed and de-committed at the last minute.

This is an important class.  The portal signees will have a more immediate impact, but BG's model requires them to recruit HS players effectively and then develop them.

Falcon MBB Gets First P4 win in 20 years

Well, now.  How about that?  It was a great night to be a Falcon...as BG went on the road to a P4 opponent, double-digit underdog, and led wire-to-wire to beat the Wildcats by 16 on the road.  It was a great performance by our boys that is turning some heads.

The last P4 win was much different.  BG beat Virginia Tech when a Hokie tipped the ball into his own basket in a last second melee at the rim.  Pre-replay, Coach Dakich debuted his strategy of dealing with the close call by getting his team off the floor quickly...which came back to haunt in the even more famous overtime loss in Buffalo years later.  Note:  That team finished 9-21

It was one of those nights.  We showed what we can do.  BG scored the first 5 points and led the entire way. With 8 minutes left, they were up 7. With 5 minutes left, K-State cut the lead to 2, but the Falcons closed on a 16-4 run to lead by 14 heading into the locker room.

That's 49-35, I might add.  The Falcons had 49 first-half points.  

The game was stable early in the second.  BG had the lead to 17 before the first media timeout. K-State hung tough, chipped it to 11, and it stayed in that neighborhood, and then the Wildcats got it to 8 with 8 minutes left, and you figure they are ready to make their run.

But that's not what happened.  BG turned them back.  It never got that close again, and heading into the last media timeout BG was up 11.  And they did what good teams do...they kept extending the lead until it was 17 points with about a minute left and the game was dribbled out.  K-State quit fouling and it was over.  82-66.

It was amazing, if not for nothing else, it was so easy.  Even when K-State pressed, BG handled it with poise every time.  How many times has BG wilted in the last 10 years under pressure?

So how did the game get won?  BG had 1.28 points per possession, their best offensive game of the year.  Since the horrible shooting game against W&M, BG's EFG has been right in the .55 range...solid and effective.  BG made .44 on 2FG and 46% on 3FG, with 41% of their shots from 3FG. This time, BG got the turnovers back under control and continued to have outstanding offensive rebounding.  And BG made 74% of their free throws.

Meanwhile, Kansas State came in #3 in the nation in 3FG%...and made 26% against the Falcons.  Their 2FG shooting was 48%, also not great.  They had a slight lead in turnovers, got a lot of offensive rebounds, and got to the line, though they were 12-22 for 55%.

This is the first game BG has won without forcing over 20% turnovers. 

Coach said they focused hard on guarding the 3FG line, and it certainly showed.  

Individually.....hey Sam Towns!!  Take a bow. Career night, 27 points, 6 of 9 2FG shooting, 3 of 5 3FG shooting, 6-6 at the line, 8 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals and 0 turnovers...if that might work for you.  In fact, he was "line o' the night" on kempom.

Javon Ruffin is really looking solid...17 on 0 of 3 and 5 of 8 shooting, 2-2 at the line, 5 rebounds and 3 assists.  Javonte Campbell had 17 on 5 of 9 and 1 of 2, 4 of 7 at the line, 6 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 turnovers.  He's adapting well to an offense where he isn't the only guy to shoot.  Troy Glover had 8 boards...and man if he converted a zero-footer here and there?

Marcus Johnson played 2 minutes against his old team, as a kind of gift it appears.

Excitement is gathering.  We ran a very tight 7-man rotation last night and this team just seems to gel.  We don't even mention Justin Thomas, who doesn't generate numbers but might be the best player on the team.

Last night was very exciting and a great accomplishment for our team.  Our Kenpom jumped 30 sports to 108.  Our game with Utah Valley--kenpom of 90--will be very interesting Saturday and a good opportunity to see the team play.