The New Kent...

The MAC circus now takes Bowling Green to the MAC Center on the campus of Kent State University.  Hat tip to an excellent blog post from the BG Athletics Department, where it is noted that the Falcons won last year and are 4-4 at the MAC Center which is pretty good.  Kent is typically very difficult to beat at home (34-6 over the past 3 years).  Certainly, we're the underdogs.  On the other hand, I'm not sure there are any favorites in the MAC this year.

Anyway, it is a new regime in Kent.  In the past, they built an Elite Eight run on a bunch of seniors who had played together for four years.  Now, they are a transfer mill bringing eight new players into the fold this season.  It has not be an easy season off the court.  Earlier this year, three players were suspended after a brawl on campus and recently, Carlton Guyton, their second leading scorer, was suspended after he was arrested and accused of theft.  He has now missed four games and I am not aware of a date for his return.

These issues have not spilled over onto the court, however.  Kent is 9-6 against the 50th toughest schedule to date.  They have a really nice win over South Florida to go with Robert Morris, Furman, and @Iona.  Their worst loss is @Morehead State.  They have lost 3 of their 4 games since Guyton went out and they lost their MAC opener at the JAR to the Zips.

Despite all this, they are a strong team.  They feature Justin Greene, who is among the best players in the MAC but who has slumped in the time coinciding with Guyton being out.  Local media seems to indicate that Zeke Marshall got the better of him this weekend.  Greene is 5th in the MAC in scoring and 3rd in rebounding.  He's 5th in blocked shots and in the Top Ten in tons of stuff.  BG's newly minted paint game will get a test.

Rodriguez Sherman also scores and contributes a few assists and rebounds, though he misses a lot of shots.

Those two guys they had last year.

They also have Michael Porrini who started at Western Carolina, moved to Gulf Coast something or other in Florida, and then transferred to Kent.

Looking at the numbers, Kent is 6-1 at home this year.  They have played at about an even tempo with what BG has played.  They are really good on the boards and getting to the line.  They are 4th in FG% and 4th and 5th in the 3-point categories.

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Now, those numbers are for the whole season...where Kent has played a tougher schedule, but where BG is not the team that generated most of the very poor early numbers.

Quick Tempo-Free Review of Bull Win

Just a couple more arcane statistical notes from the Buffalo win.

First, BG had an offensive efficiency of .96 points per possession, which is not up to where we have been recently, but well above our season average of .91 and well above what Buffalo had been allowing, .917. On the flip side, BG held the Bulls to .92, which was well below the 1.04 they have been getting.

On the game flow, as you can see, the game was closely contested the entire way...

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As for the Four Factors, as you can see the decisive factors were shooting and rebounding.  Turnovers were a little in Buffalo's favor...the the FT Rate is misleading, because BG certainly succeeded in getting to the line, but not in the part where you put the little ball into the hole.

NCAA Basketball Stats

MAC In Bowls

After the whining and kvetching I have done about the MAC's performance in bowl games, I should take a second to note that the MAC finished 2-2 in its bowl games this year after 1-4 last year and on top of a 16 game losing streak that did not end until CMU won the MAC's last bowl game last season.

So, we have won 3 out of our last 5, if you want to see things that way.

It is not a huge accomplishment, this non-losing record of ours.  Three of the four games were against Sun Belt teams and none were against BCS teams.  We lost 2 of 3 to the Sun Belt and avoided a sweep when the RedHawks took care of business under the dizzying spell of the now-legendary Lance Guidry stemwinder.

While it is not our proudest moment, it is better than the abject failure that proceeded it.

Falcons Open the MAC Season on road with win

Bowling Green went to Buffalo last night, and picked up a double OT win that is pretty big for where we are right now.

There are a few reasons for that.

First of all, while I think it was clear when we previewed the Buffalo team that they didn't have any real quality wins yet, and thus you didn't know what you had, they were a surprise team that was playing pretty well.

Second, the East division is very tough.  Kent and Akron appear to be the best teams in the MAC, OU won last year, and Miami is directed by The Evil Genius and is always lurking in the shadows with a handkerchief soaked in chloroform.  So, when you play Buffalo, you'd like to win.

Third, it was a road win.

Fourth, it was a game that we easily could have folded in, and did not.  It is our first win when we trailed at halftime this season.

In terms of the game flow, Buffalo was up by 8 with just under 5 minutes left to play in the first half and they led by 6 at the half.  BG came bolting out of the gate on an 8-2 run and had the game tied before the first media timeout.  It was close and tense for the remainder of the half, with the game within one possession either way almost the entire time.

BG had plenty of opportunities to win the game in regulation.  The Falcons were up 2 and UB had the ball and Thomas got a steal with :18 left and was fouled.  He had the chance to lose it out, but missed the front end of a 1-1.  Cam Black committed a foul with :05 left, and Mulkey obliged by missing the FT.  Once again, the game should really be over.  We did not box out, UB got the board, and Calhoun fouled, and this time UB hit both free throws to force overtime.

Ouch.

Similarly, in the first overtime, BG was up by 2 with :16 left, and got Buffalo to miss on the offensive end but once again BG failed to control the rebound and UB got a field goal to tie the game in the closing second.

The second overtime appears to be an exercise in fatigue.  BG was better tired, if that is the case.  Buffalo scored with 3:54 left to take a 2-point lead, and they did not score again.  Granted, BG scored only 5 points over the same period of time.  Luke Kraus had a steal and a nice basket on a sweet dish from Jordan Crawford, and Danny McElroy hit the key shot in the paint to put BG up 2 with :24 left.

From there, BG got a stop and Thomas got the board.  He was fouled, and thankfully made one of the 2 free throws, and UB missed their desperation 3 to win the game.

So, that's a pretty exciting way to start the year.

A few thoughts.

BG has become a team that is strictly looking at its inside game.  We made 1 3FG this game after none the game before.  We only attempted 4 3s in the whole game.  We scored 50 of our 74 points in the paint.  I have often said that my favorite type of basketball is winning, so I could not be less interested in what style of play caused the Falcons to leave the floor with more points.  Laissez les bons temps rouler

When you are shooting close to the basket, you should make more.  In fact, if you play this style and you do not, you are dead meat.  BG shot over 50% from the field again.  We have done this in 5 of our last 6 games and we have not lost when we have done it.

Coach stressed the quality defense in his post-game.  We held Buffalo under 40% for the game on FGs, including 31% in the second half, and we held them to 32% on 3s.  They were shooting 49% and 37% for the year.  Despite our late rebounding issues, we had a great game overall at +9.

We'll have an update with tempo-free stuff later.

On an individual level, we got a really nice game out of A'uston Calhoun, who seems to be rounding into the player we hoped he could be.  He does miss some frustrating close baskets, but after a slow start last night got tougher and ended up with 20 and 9 on 9 of 20 shooting.  Scott Thomas had a really nice game with 19 and 11 on 8 of 12 shooting.  Danny McElroy had 13 points on 6-9 shooting and Cam Black had 11 rebounds.

Note:  Those stats were generated in 50 minutes.

BG, in fact, should have won this game in regulation going away.  BG shot a dreadful 46% from the free throw line for the game, and a horrifying 33% in regulation.  If we even make 10 of our 15 free throws in regulation that's +5 and we're winning.  This has happened from time to time under the Orr regime, but we're not going to be able to play in the paint like this because teams will start to foul us and we have to be able to put the FTs away.

Buffalo did a great job taking care of the ball.  They turned it over only 12 times.  Amazingly, 11 of those were on steals to BG.  That means that, they had only 1 dead-ball turnover for 50 minutes.

Finally, BG's guards.  Our starters, Brown and Jakubowski, played only 20 minutes, while Kraus and Crawford each played 30 minutes.  Kraus never puts up any huge numbers, but he does seem to play tough defense and may have helped keep Filzen under control.  Crawford had 9 points and 4 assists on 3-6 shooting.

A note on Buffalo.  Javon McCrea is the real deal.  He had 18 points on 9-11 shooting with 9 rebounds and he only played 26 minutes.  It helped the Falcons immensely in the overtimes that the Bulls did not have him.

Double OT win for Falcons!

BGathletics: MBSK: BGSU WINS! BGSU WINS! 74-71! We'll have so much
more on BGSUFalcons.com later! (and on this blog)

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From the Buffalo News....

Here's a Buffalo News recap of the season so far, which has been surprising for Buffalo.  Pretty much follows along what I wrote yesterday, but it is interesting to see their perspective that this is the best basketball the Bulls have played in 6 seasons.

Also, one little bit of news.  The Bulls are getting Mike Clifford back after an academic suspension.  He is 6'7", 245, and played 5 minutes against Cornell.  He played 8 minutes a game last season.

The Real Season Begins....Previewing the Bulls.

So, the real season begins....the MAC season.  BG starts with a surprisingly tough assignment in Buffalo against the Bulls.

I say surprising only in that they graduated almost everybody and were looking at a pretty bare cupboard, or so it seemed.  Instead, they are the surprise team of the conference to date.

The first thing has been the play of PG Byron Mulkey.  As noted in our Q&A with Bull Run, Coach Witherspoon redshirted him after his junior year, an unconventional move which seems to be paying off.  With the players they had last year, you have to wonder how many minutes he would get anyway, and this year, he's been really good.  He's leading the MAC in assist/turnover ratio and steals, is 2nd in offensive efficiency, 4th in assists, 5th in FT shooting, 7th in defensive rebounding and 9th in scoring.  He's clearly a first-teamer right now, and last year, the Spoon might well have saved this season with this move.

Two players are certainly supporting Mulkey.  One is Zach Filzen, another guy who kind of came out of nowhere,  He transferred from Northern Arizona and averaged only 7 minutes per game last season.  This year, he is Buffalo's leading scorer, leads the MAC in 3-point shooting (and at one point lead the nation but they have not played in a while, so he has fallen), is 6th in FG attempts, 6th in scoring, 8th in true shooting, and 8th in offensive efficiency.  For a 3-point shooter to have that kind of efficiency is really rare.  Of course, he is hitting 45% from beyond the arc.  Only 15 players in the MAC are better than that on ALL their shots.

Speaking of shooting, the other surprise for the Bulls is Javon McCrea, who is an early contender for freshman of the year.  He's shooting a ridiculous 69% from the field (leading the MAC) and also leads the conference in offensive rebounding.  He's 3rd in offensive rebounding, 4th in blocks and FT rate, and 6th in overall rebounding.  He's only 6'6" but appears to play a lot taller, and is a great recruit for Buffalo.

So, it is clear that there are three keys to the game right off the bat:

• Defend Filzen on the perimeter (Luke Kraus anyone?)
• Defend Mulkey on the point
• Win the paint battle with McCrea
• Show we can win on the road again

As a body of work this year, Buffalo is 8-4 against the country's 295th ranked schedule.  Of course, BG is 5-9 against the country's 307th toughest schedule, so there you go.  In my view, Buffalo has yet to get a defining win.  They beat an OK Green Bay team in Buffalo, and they did play Brigham Young tough before losing, and except for a road loss to Youngstown State I think they don't have any bad losses, but I just don't see the "won the game you weren't supposed to" on their results.

As you can see on the four factors below, they are a very solid offensive team.  They average 1.06 points per possession this year, which is really good.  The best thing BG can do to stunt that is to get the ball away before they can shoot, which is something we have been good at.  The zone should help, but at the same time, we can't let Filzen go crazy from outside either.  In this sense, they look to be difficult to defend.  As you can see, they are strong rebounders.  We need a good tough game from Black, Calhoun, Oglesby and Thomas to keep them off the boards, and we need to keep them off the free throw line.

Most importantly, we need to bring the game we have brought over the past 2 weeks or so.  When you look at BG's stats, they are impacted by a dreadful November.  We need to score points close to the basket, make some outside shots when we need it, and get stops, especially with steals and turnovers.  We need continuing contributions from our full roster, because we clearly do not have a player that can carry us every night.

If our play continues as it has recently, we are not that team and I think we can compete with most of the conference.  If we fall back to the November level, or anything close, we're going to struggle to beat anybody in the conference.

NCAA Basketball Stats