Regular Season Finale, MBB

 

OK.  We're at the end.  One game left.

BG is in Cleveland.  There are three ways we can finish.

Fifth--We can finish 5th.  If we win Friday and OU loses to Miami--both of which are the likely outcomes, BG and OU would tie and BG would get the tie breaker.  BG would play UT and then be in the Miami side of the bracket.

Sixth...BG is sixth now. If we don't move up or down, we will play Kent in the late game and then be in the Akron half of the bracket.

Seventh...if BG loses and UB wins, we would tie at 8-10.  They would beat us in the tie breaker and then we would be 7th and play Akron.

It would be nice to avoid UA and MU in the first round and (in fact) KS, the team that has beaten us 14 straight times. 

Which would be us and the Rockets.

So now we just need to beat EMU.

BG beat EMU at the Stroh earlier this year.  It was a close finish that you'd like to think would not have been needed. BG dominated the first half, leading by as much as 15.  They came out hot and blew a 10-point half time lead up to 21 with 17:36 left.  Two minutes later, the lead was 10. Two minutes after that it was 8. The game was tied with 10 minutes left.

That's a 7-minute 29-8 run.

Three minutes after that, EMU was up 5.  With 4 minutes left, they were up 4.

And then...well EMU scored only 1 point over those 4 minutes.  Even so, the game was still tied with :56 to play, BG's ball. Campbell hit a late shot-clock 2FG and BG got a stop. Shackleford hit 2 FTs, BG got another stop and two more FTs for Shackleford and BG had pulled the fat out of the fire.

Coach said: "We love that we won.  We don't love this win."

The Falcons played essentially with 6 guys.  Justin Thomas logged only 10 minutes.

It was the first game for EMU without Carlos Hart, who has been ensared in the gambling investigation.  EMU was 9-9 and 3-3 heading into that one...they won won out of their remaining 11 games, 1 out of 10 in the MAC.

You're gonna want to win this one. I'll take us back to last year at the Stroh, when BG lost to WMU and needed help to sneak into the #8 seed of the tournament.

That's the first game.  BG outshot them a little and was +4 at the line (all in the last minute) to grind out the victory.

It was one of those Mayer Wol games...he had 25 and 5 of 7 from 3FG.  He has played 24 minutes in the last two games and is 6-24 from 3FG since Ark. State.

Campbell had 18 and Glover double-doubled.

Former Falcon Braelon Green had 22 on 13 shots and Mohammed Habhab had a 15/12 double-double.

EMU is done after tomorrow. They have nothing to play for.   BG has beaten EMU in 11 of the last 13 games and is a 3.5 point favorite.