Falcons Triumph
More later. For now
Sunday, December 12, 2010
BG News says Thomas out
 BG News Sports (@bgnewssports)12/12/10 1:23 PM At Anderson Arena for men's hoops vs. FIU, Scott Thomas won't play due to back spasms, more at www.bgnewssports.com later |
Sent from my iPhone
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Isiah, Part II
The Falcon search for their first D1 win continues tomorrow Isiah Thomas brings his Golden Panthers into AA for a rematch of last year's game, which was the first time two former NBA players had battled as coaches in AA.
BG won that encounter on that backs of Dee Brown's 20 and Scott Thomas' 10. Score was 67-62, and BG shot 48% for the game.
FIU appears to be improved this year, although it is hard to believe that Thomas' virtual non-stop flirting with the New York Knicks contributes productively to the program. They are 4-4. Their wins are not spectacular--two of them are non DI, and one is over Utah Valley, by 3 points. Utah Valley has an RPI roughly where BG's is. They also beat a decent TN-Chattanooga by 21 in Miami. Their losses are to Jackson State, Florida State, Marshall and Louisville, none of which has an RPI lower than 104 right now.
We're catching them at the right time. Much of their pre-season hope was built on Top 100 recruit Dominique Ferguson, but he's been ineligible for the first semester (this might give us an idea how a Top 100 recruited ended up at FIU.) They also are looking forward to the eligibility of Alex Legion who is a transfer from Illinois.
I checked in with the papers in Miami. Suffice it to say that the they are more focused on their first trip to a bowl game in football.
If the FIU program does turn around under Thomas, it will be the first time they have really shown any chops at all. Some more FIU fun facts:
- 4-3 vs MAC in last 10 years
- Sun Belt 1-2 this year
- 10 straight losing seasons
They play a slightly more uptempo game than BG and score 69 points a game but allow 72. The stats below reflect only the offensive sides of the coin where FIU, to no one's surprise, is considerably stronger. FIU is an OK 3-FG shooting team, but only marginally better than BG.
Defensively, BG has forced more turnovers and is holding teams to lower scoring than FIU is. Rebounds and free throws are pretty similar.
They are led by 6'8" Eric Frederick, a very solid PF who is averaging 17 points and 7 boards while playing only 26 minutes a game. (FIU shares minutes a lot). DeJuan Wright is also averaging 14 points per game. Phil Gary and Jeremy Allen also produce efficiently on offense.
I'm sure BG will be an underdog out there. I posted earlier this week about the current status of our team, which is pretty lost. As we wait to see if and when it all gets put together, we can keep our fingers crossed that this is a good opportunity. FIU is not good defensively, and it would be nice to see us hit a couple shots and combine that with some decent defense. More than anything, I think getting a little confidence would be a big help.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Falcon Recruiting...New Verbal
 Howard Chen (@ho_chen)12/10/10 1:52 PM #BGSU #BowlingGreen football today got a new verbal commit for the class of 2011: @stjohnsjesuit TE Zach Steinmetz #recruiting #MAC |
As you can see above, BGSU now has its 8th public verbal commitment....Zach Steinmetz of Toledo St. John's will be a Falcon. It is interesting in that Coach Clawson said we were going to be more specific in recruiting and that we were looking pretty good at TE, and that's what Steinmetz plays. Still, he looks like a pretty good football player. He's a 2-star/74 on ESPN, which is a good recruit for the MAC. He was honorable mention All-District, and first team All-City league.
Here's some video, and for those of you without much imagination, this will be good because some of it takes place on the turf at the Doyt.
Welcome to the Falcons, Zach.
One other recruiting note...I don't usually get into the drama of recruiting (who's "interest" is up, etc) and generally only report these guys when they verbal. I have seen online that at least 3 of the reported verbals to date are calling themselves "soft," so it could be tense times between now and signing day.
Revised Tackle Statistics
So....I mentioned earlier that I wondered about individual tackle statistics. What made me start to wonder was playing NFL Fantasy Football. I am in a league with individual defensive players and you get points for tackles. Its a little messed up because you get four points for a tackle and six for a TD, so tackles are important. What I discovered is that the big scoring guys are the ones who are the MLB or FS on a lousy defensive team. They are on the field all the time, and they get tons of opportunities and someone has to make a tackle. I drafted these guys and it has worked.
So, I applied this bit of insight to the MAC. Again, the theory is that a player on a killer D might not get as many tackles, so you can look at the tackles as a proportion of the plays the defense saw.
A caveat. The number of tackles is strictly the total number for that defense for the season. If a guy missed a game, then he missed all the tackles in that game.
Here's what came out....the number on the left is the player's rank on my new and fantastic measure, and the one to the right next to their name is the one from the MAC's boring and official, old-school, brain dead rank. As you an see, they are pretty similar. I have helpfully placed orange arrows next to the 3 that had the most difference.
- Dwayne Woods falls from #1 to #4 based on having 21 more opportunities to tackle.
- Neal Howey moved from #12 to #8...in this case, he turned the theory on its ear, because he plays for EMU, and they were a lousy defense. However, they only faced 751 plays. Why? Because they were so lousy teams scored on big plays and not on on tackle-creating long drives.
- Evan Harris of Miami moves from 21 to 15 based on having 81 tackles on a good defense that faced on 750 plays.
- Finally, Nick Bellore took a hit, falling from 9 to 13...
Anyway, this just seems to me a more logical measure....we'll keep an eye on this and see how it rolls out in the next season.
Thursday, December 09, 2010
Sadness Accrues, WKU beats BGSU. Faith tested.
The Falcons lost their seventh straight game last night to Western Kentucky, a game in which they fell behind by 17 before getting the game within 2 points and then losing by 7 after going the last 2:11 without scoring.
I listened to Coach Orr's presser. He said something which I thought was pretty telling:
"Sometimes the Lord lets you get in a place that stretches your faith."
And to that I can agree. As I thought about the game last night, I certainly was having stretched faith as to where the program is. To date, this is a historically bad Bowling Green team, one of the worst in memory. You just don't expect to be in this spot after four years with a Coach. Right now, we're no better than we were when Dakich left and we might be worse. I'm not trying to rip anyone....these things just seem apparent to me.
Coach also talked about trying to find our identity. I'd put it another way. We just look lost out there. The ball won't go in the basket. Guys get big minutes one game and limited to no meetings the next. Guys start, and then disappear. Someone has a good game, and then doesn't. Shot clocks run down and no one tries to create anything. Balls are passed to players who don't seem to expect it. We just look lost.
The game, in total, was pretty depressing last night. BG shot 30% from the field, our fourth game out of 9 where we have been 30 or below. (We are 340th out of 345 in the country in FG%). We scored .73 points per possession, which was our second worst game of the year. (We are 337th in offensive efficiency). There's no point in calling out individual players because nobody is shooting well, but the frontcourt just didn't hit anything last night. We have a young player who has missed at least his last 11 shots. We also turned the ball over on 28% of our possessions, our 3rd highest of the season.
To add to horrid shooting, we gave up 45% shooting and 32 free throw attempts on our home floor. In fact, BG had more FGs than WKU did, but lost the game mostly in the number of FTs given up. We aren't playing the kind of defense that lets a team get away with shooting this badly.
So, how did this game even get to be close? Here's the game flow.
BG was down 17 with 14 minutes left and down 12 with 10 minutes left. We did put together a very strong rally in the second half and played with some "energy and tenacity" as Coach says. My test is whether you had possession of the ball in a one possession game, and we did.
- With 1:45 left, BG was down 2 and Dee Brown missed a jumper, ended up with the rebound and missed another jumper.
- With 1:00 left or so, down 3, BG had the ball. Crawford missed a jumper, McElroy got the offensive board and missed the putback, and and then WKU rebounded, was fouled, and there was not another possession where BG was within one score of tying the game.
The Falcons did not score the last 2 minutes. Coach was asked about this, and he said that he thought we got good shots ("very makeable") and they just didn't go in, which is what he usually says in this situation. In a sense, if you were running bad offense, you could fix it. It seems hard to fix this, and this team is in a long shooting slump.
With all this misery, you might wonder how this even came to be a game at all. The reason is that WKU had 29 turnovers, which means they turned the ball over on 2 out of every 5 possessions in the game. Their coach told their radio network that he did not want to see anyone "smiling" in the locker room afterwards. They have struggled with turning the ball over, and BG seemed to get some energy and momentum out of doing some trapping, and Coach allowed as to how that might end up being the team's identity.
He then said "you gotta play," meaning, I assume, that you have to do the things basketball players do, one of which is sink open shots and layups. He said our guards need to make plays, to create things for other people.
FWIW, here is a picture of the sad tale of woe.
Anyway, it is a pretty discouraging time in the men's basketball program. Coach said several times that we will get there. I certainly hope so, because right now, this is a low point at the end of what has been a historic low period for our program. I'm going to have faith that this is going to turn around, and when the word faith is used here, it is truly being used in its full meaning. It means that you think things will turn around even when there is little to no visual evidence that it is or that it will.
Wednesday, December 08, 2010
Blog Poll for Week 15
Big change in the week 15 Blogpoll is that Auburn is now #1....which is where I have had them for sometime.
Results for Week 15
1
-1SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings »
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