MAC Men's Out of Conference Hoops Report

You would not necessarily know it by looking in the stands, but we are seeing a slight resurgence in MAC basketball over the past few years.  A couple years, the MAC ranked #17 in RPI, and this year is #12, which is where they were last year.

The MAC had its best success in a long time against non-conference D1 competition this year.  In recent years, the record has ranked in the mid-40s or so.  Last year, it popped up to 55% and this year was 60%.  Now, without any hard numbers to back it up, my impression is that this year's non-conference schedule was not as taxing as last years--the top MAC win by RPI was Akron over South Carolina, which is #80,  Even if the schedule was weaker, the MAC held its position and if the position you are holding is #12, that's OK

BG had the 2nd biggest--over Wright State with an RPI of 99--but also had the worst loss.  BG was the only team to lose to a non-D1 opponent.

Below are the D1 conference ranked by their current RPI and the MAC's record against them.  The MAC has four wins over top four conferences.  The Big East win was Ohio over a weak DePaul team, the SEC win was South Carolina, and the Big Ten wins were Eastern over UM and CMU over Northwestern.  I'm going to do a reset on the MAC teams before the season starts Tuesday, but both EMU and CMU have Big 10 wins and both also have multiple non D1 wins, as well.

Notable below are the MAC's winning records against the West Coast Conference and especially the Missouri Valley.  The big lead over the Horizon is appropriate and as you move down the rankings, you start to see consistent undefeated records for the MAC, which is also as it should be.  The 3 OVC losses are to Belmont (OU) and two to EIU (NIU and Ball), so that's a loss to a good team and two of the MAC's weaker teams.  I'm sure no one is happy with the 3 losses to C-USA either.  The Atlantic Sun loss was OU to Florida Gulf Coast.

Anyway, love the MAC regular season and looking forward to getting it started.  I think that men's basketball is considerably stronger than its low point a couple years ago.  The conference lacks the big stars that it had back in the 80s and 90s, but the quality of basketball is better.

1 Big 12 (0-1)
2 Big East (1-1)
3 Southeastern (1-1)
4 Big Ten (2-8)
5 Atlantic Coast (0-4)
6 Pacific-12 (1-2)
7 Atlantic 10 (0-7)
8 American Athletic (1-0)
9 West Coast (2-1)
10 Missouri Valley (5-4)
11 Mountain West (1-1)
12 Mid-American
13 Independents ----
14 Big West (1-1)
15 Horizon League (10-4)
16 Ivy League (1-2)
17 Patriot League (1-0)
18 Colonial Athletic (2-3)
19 Conference USA (1-3)
20 Northeast (3-0)
21 Southland (2-0)
22 Metro Atlantic Athletic (2-0)
23 Southern (1-0)
24 Sun Belt (4-0)
25 America East (5-0)
26 Ohio Valley (2-3)
27 Summit (3-3)
28 Big Sky (3-0)
29 Big South (4-0)
30 Southwestern Athletic (8-0)
31 Atlantic Sun (2-1)
32 Western Athletic (6-0)
33 Mid-Eastern (5-0)

MAC Bowl Performance

After dropping a bagel in the last bowl season, the MAC was back this year, in a fashion, going 2-3 in its bowl games.  And yes, BG could easily have lost and it would have been 1-4, but at the same time CMU was one play from winning and it could have been 3-2.

The only convincing win came last night with UT beat Arkansas State by 19 points.

The competition was certainly not the toughest.  UT beat a 7-5 Arkansas State team and BG beat a 6-6 South Alabama team, and both of those teams developed those records in the Sun Belt.  CMU lost to WKU, which was 8-4 in C-USA.

The toughest--and highest profile game--was NIU against Marshall.  The MAC's Champs had a chance to make a showing in a big venue, but were smoked 52-23.

Finally, WMU was playing 9-3 Air Force.  I honestly thought WMU would win this one, but they lost by 2 touchdowns.  (Does anyone but me think that the triple option might be the new black?)

The MAC went through a long, multi-year period where it won no bowl games, and now have two wins in two of the last 3 seasons.  I do think it matters.  I know all the faults with the bowl system, but with the number of times we match up with the Sun Belt, you'd like to think we'd have a better overall track record.

Falcon Football Verbal--Matthew Finkler

So, over the holiday week, BG snuck another verbal commit by me...this one continues two themes, one of which is recruiting this general area and the other is defense.  This player is very interesting...highly accomplished but from a smaller school.  These guys can go a couple of different ways, but I always think that you might be getting a guy who is a football player and can continue to develop while at BG and turn into a really good MAC player.

His name is Matthew Finkler of Kirtland HS.  He was co-defensive Ohio player of the year in Division VI and his team won the state championship.  This is a really interesting story.  He plays MLB...in a 5-1-5 defense, which is something I have never heard of.  The last guy to play MLB for that school in that system went on to the Air Force Academy.

He had 100+ tackles for three straight years and appears to have been a really productive player.  In various places, you can see where he had offers from BG, Buffalo and Miami, at a minimum.

Welcome to the Falcons, Matthew.

Update:  Apparently, Finkler was actually committed to Buffalo before switching to BG.  (h/t to FreddieFalcon.com)

Bowling Green flips Buffalo pledge Matthew Finkler of Kirtland (OH) HS. Tough hard nosed player I saw in state title game. Under the radar
— Dave Berk (@DMBerk) December 29, 2014

Falcons Shut Down Chicago State for 8th Win

BG did what it was supposed to do Saturday at the Stroh Center, taking an early lead and then cruising to an easy victory over an over-matched opponent, the Chicago State Cougars.  I'm sure the Falcons had the result of their last home game--the Ferris loss--prominent in their mind when they took the court.  After 5 minutes BG was up 5-4 and from there they went on a 34-10 run over the next 10 minutes to blow the game open.  The 2nd half was evenly played and the Cougars never got the score inside 20.

The final score was 58-35.  Obviously, 35 is a really low point total...in fact, the last time that BG allowed an opponent to score that few was in 1980 against Dennison.  I don't know when the last time BG had a better performance against D1 opposition.   (Long-time Falcon fans might remember that Dennison game.  John Weinert was the BG Coach, and his former assistant, Mike Ehrenfried, was the Dennison coach.  Weinert was furious with Dennison for coming to BG and playing a slow down game.)

Chicago State followed a similar strategy to the one they used in their close game with Green Bay, which was to pack into a 2-3 zone and try to force outside shots.  The strategy worked.  The game was played at a snail's pace, with possessions in the low 50s--favoring BG--and the Falcons did shoot from the outside a lot.  BG had 49 FG attempts and 32 were from 3FG.  They were also effective, as BG made 11.  However, in the decisive first half, BG was 8 of 15 from beyond the arc.  Despite poor 2nd half shooting, BG ended up with 1.12 points per possession.

Chicago State was known to be offensively-challenged, and the Falcons took strong advantage of that.  The Cougars had only .67 points per possession and shot only 30% for the game and 24% in the first half.  When you see a shooting spread like the one below, you can be pretty much be sure who the winning team is going to be.  BG also took good care of the ball against some Cougar pressure and kept the Cougars off the line, though BG also did not shoot many FTs due to the fact they were in the lane so rarely.

Individually, Coach Jans used the opportunity to clear his bench.  No one played more than 25 minutes.  Anthony Henderson had a big game, with 14 points in 25 minutes on 4-9 3FG shooting.  Jehvon Clarke had 11 points on 3-5 3FG shooting.  Denny had 8 rebounds and Parker had 7, and BG's point guards had 12 assists over 1 TO.

So, that's the non-conference season.  BG went 8-3 and that's certainly something to be proud of.  The schedule might not have been the toughest, but BG is clearly improved over last season.  There are 3 road wins in there...that is important.  The MAC season is going to be very interesting.  We're going to get a tough test right out of the gate, starting Wednesday at Kent, OU on Saturday at the Stroh and then right back to NE Ohio to play Akron.  Tough way to start, but BG has a generally favorable schedule...on the other hand, notch 2 wins in the first 3 and we might be on to something interesting.

The State of the Football Program

So, this has been in the works for a while.  I had started it after BG turned in the worst performance in the history of the MAC Championship game and then didn't write it, which I am glad I did not.  Not sure how much it changed, but things can't be any worse than they were that morning.

First, we have to look at this season and see what we have.  The dominant narrative in the media has been a "depends on how you look at it" story.  The team did win the East and they did win their bowl game...the team also was picked to win the conference, lost 6 games, lost a couple games they shouldn't have and struggled to beat some poor teams.

This is a matter of opinion.  My view falls on the latter half of the equation.  Yes, BG did win the East and that's better than not winning the East.  But, objectively, it was a pretty low bar.  Somebody had to win it...BG did so with 3 losses in the MAC and without winning one cross-over game.  Their wins over UMass, Akron, Kent, and Buffalo were all struggles against teams that finished with losing records.  Their win @OU was probably the highlight of the MAC season.

Add to that an embarrassing loss to a WKU team that did not do great things, a historically poor performance @Wisconsin and then a season-ending collapse against BSU and NIU.  The bowl win was fun and nice, but South Alabama was a 6-6 team and BG was 1 minute from losing to them.  Again, beating them is better than not beating them and I was happy for our players and our seniors for the win, but it wasn't climbing Mount Everest.

What about Indiana?  That's the whole thing, right?  How did that happen?  Even an Indiana team that wasn't any good should have been good enough to beat BG (ie, be at least as good as Western Kentucky or Ball State), and they weren't.  BG moved the ball, got a couple stops on defense, made the big rally--it was a huge win and completely at odds with the remainder of the season.

So I have no explanation for that.  I think our guys came out highly motivated and fired up and gave a great performance, one they were unable to replicate even one other time all season.

So mix all that together and I think you have to rate the season as a disappointment and an unnecessary one.  If you look at how the season unfolded, in fact, I think you see a team that was amazingly consistent...the results were mostly based on the opposition, with BG playing well enough to beat bad teams but not well enough to beat the good teams on the schedule.  Having said that, I think the team was playing its worst football in the last two games of the scheduled season and that's never a good thing.

All this has left the Falcon Nation in a pretty foul mood.  It started with the WKU game, when a championship team completely reverted to its previous form.  The mood changed briefly after the Indiana game but then slipped quickly back into a black funk where it sits today.  I'd say there is a low degree of confidence in our Coach's ability to lead the program.

And, I will say that's probably unfair.  The year was a disappointment but you want to give the coach an opportunity to show what he can do over more than one year.

Coach is a talker, and he is quotable.  It started with storming off the field after scrimmages and declaring "we will never be this slow again," went to the WKU disappointment, headed to the Indiana game where he told fans that "the train had left the station" and if you weren't on it, it was too late, "unless you are Superman," where we kicked onside "because we wanted to get the ball back and score again," and then some testy exchanges with the media over the team's winning but subpar performances, and then on it went.  After the Ball State game he said he was going to "fix everything" yet when the NIU game started, it was clear nothing had been fixed.

Here is one thing.  He can be an excuse maker.  In a presser late in the year, he related how he had looked at how many guys BG had been missing for different games, and he implied that because of those injuries, the overall results were out of anyone's control.

That just doesn't hold up.  Yes, the starting QB was injured...but UT came within a TD of beating NIU with their #4 QB and beat BG with the #2.  Yes, BG had injuries on defense, but nowhere near what UT and Ball State had, and both of those teams beat BG.  BG played Ball State with a healthy defense was healthy and they still torched us with a QB they had benched...and BG was relatively healthy for the NIU game.

Injuries happen to football teams.  You can't be a coach who has to have 100% health to win.

Another thing had to do with the QB.  BG was without its starting QB and that is tough on any team.  Fans were screaming for Knapke to be benched for most of the year, but I will submit to you that the play from Callaway indicated that Knapke gave the team the best chance to win.  The bigger issue is that our offensive gurus were unable to figure out a way to move the ball with the guys they had even after 11 weeks and a long bye period.

The third thing that has tainted the fan base is the public issues with the football team, including arrests that run from the serious to the stupid.  Coach's response to the stupid one was more excuses--just boys will be boys.

So combine an underwhelming performance on the field with the off-the-field issues, and you just feel like things fell pretty far in one year.

How far?

BG fell from 3rd to 5th in scoring offense and total offense.
1st to 12th in scoring defense (18 more points per game, more than double)...also 1st to 12th in total defense.
1st to 11th in rushing defense.
1st to 9th in offensive pass efficiency.
1st to 4th in defensive pass efficiency
1st to 7th in kickoff returns
1st to 8th in offensive 3rd down conversions.
2nd to 8th in defensive third down conversions
6th to 12th in penalty yards
1st to 5th in red zone defense.

Look, I get it, there's some cherry-picking there.  The stats not listed were comparable to last year.  Those are still some significant fall offs from year to year and clearly follow the overall storyline, which was that the team--which had significant players back--was worse than the year before.

So, let's look ahead.

There's every reason to think the offense will be very potent next year.  In fact, it better be.  Coach has said that the most improvement in his offense comes before year two, and the people who support him point NON-STOP to his 2nd year at EIU.  So....it's the 2nd year and you are replacing two offensive coaches.

Here is the offensive depth chart from the end of this season, with a couple additions.  BG hardly loses anything on offense.  Meanwhile, they add back significant talent at QB and WR...the line remains intact, the RBs are back.  If you can think about teams having to defend Rhodes and Lewis...and then darting Burbrink, Dieter and Gallon in the open spaces, with Greene and Coppet...there is no reason to think that this offense cannot rebound next year.

The issue will be on defense.  Here's the same analysis for BG on defense.  You lose key contributors at DE, both of your best LBs, both of your safeties and your best CB.  So while BG can expect to score next year, they are losing a lot of guys off a defense that was already 12th in the conference.  All the players Babers could not coach without are gone.  And here's the problem--here's the thing I fear:  this year the excuse was injuries.  I can just hear us saying (after a 6-6 season) that "we just lost too much on defense."  God forbid the defense also isn't healthy.

I'd like to propose 3 ways you could look at this situation.

We'll call the first one the Resurgent Scenario.  Even though re-tooling the team and switching systems were choices made by the AD and the Coach, the 2014 season has been sacrificed and now we can see the benefit.  The QB position is solidified, there is a lot of skill and experience, the coaching staff develops the younger defensive players and the team gets the program back, as coach says, "where it should be."  When this happens, all is forgiven.  Winning is a cure.

The second scenario is what I would call the Rip and Run scenario.  This is the one I hear from BG fans all the time.  The idea here is the Babers and his team never expected to be here more than a couple years.  They expected to have big success and then to move on, which all fits nearly (and maybe too neatly) with the perceived lack of discipline, perceived lack of interest in protecting the program's overall reputation and the lack of willingness to build on what existed.  People tell me all the time that Coach has not bought a home in BG.

Here's the problem with the Rip and Run.  It is one thing if it works--although the last time BG had to replace a system coach it took 3 years to put a normal football team on the field again.  If it doesn't...if the Coach doesn't win and can't leave, you are stuck with him for the remainder of his deal or a buyout.  Finally, in this scenario, you need to remember that Coach Babers has not been a head coach long enough to develop--either way--a track record as a recruiter.

Finally there's the RichRod Scenario.  Under this scenario, the Coach is just a mismatch from the beginning with the program and its fan base and everything he does is cast in a negative light and eventually that becomes an undertow that brings the program down.  In fact, even as the Coach improves the team he is run off.

I don't know what's going to happen.  I will say this--underwhelming though it might have been, thank GOD for the bowl win.  It certainly did improve the mood and helps immensely for the off-season.  A loss would have made everything difficult.

Here's the thing.  Every coach and AD who comes here does so with the idea of leaving.  You just hope they leave the way Clawson did as opposed to the way Brandon did.  So, let's hope that's what we get.  I'm not optimistic that next year's team can win a title and I'm not at all convinced that we are headed in the right direction, but let's hope that Coach Babers does what he came here to do.  That would start by putting the Resurgent Scenario into play--after an off-season where we aren't making videos and swaggering around about how fast we are going to be.  Coach may not think he's a grinder, but this winter might be a good time to quietly grind a little.

MBB--Chicago State Preview

BG wraps up the non-conference season tomorrow against the Chicago State Cougars.  On paper, this is a game BG should win...but so was Ferris State, so let's keep that in mind.

Chicago State is a member of the WAC (I know, right?) and they are 4-12 on the season.  Those 4 wins include only 1 D1 win, over Nebraska-Omaha.  Their RPI is 330 and their Kenpom is 336 out of 351.  They are 0-9 on the road.

In common opponent land, they lost by 15 @WKU, whereas BG lost by 10.  They lost by 28 @Toledo.  In their last game, they played a very good Green Bay team tough, losing by only 4 on the road.  Two games before that they lost to a very poor SIU-Edwardsville by 25.

They are offensively challenged.  You can see that because they are 318th in the country in points per game, but it is actually worse than that.  They actually play at a very fast pace--74 possessions per game--which is 18th in the country.  So, they are creating tons of possessions and STILL not scoring.  They average .86 points per possession, which is 341st in the country.

How do they do it?  Well, they shoot very poorly--38% and 29%, both in the lowest 50 programs--and they turn the ball over on 24% of their possessions, which is among the 20 worst.  That's a pretty toxic brew right there.  They are only average at offensive rebounding and they are 276th in the country at getting to the free throw line and 332nd at making them.

So sometimes you seen a team like that and you find out they play lock down D...that's not the case here.  The Cougars allow 1 point per possession, which is good but far from a lock down D.  The calling card here is pressure defense.  The Cougars get turnovers on 25% of opponent possessions, which is really high and among the top 25 in D1.

If they don't get a turnover....things start to go bad.  They allow 46% and 39% shooting, both ranked in the 300s.  Like teams that play pressure D, they give up a ton of FTs...they are about average on defensive rebounding.

In that sense, this is a nice opportunity.  BG has historically struggled against pressure D and we have seen that this year as well, even with upgrades at PG.  Coach Jans said earlier this year that BG had to be better about attacking the pressure, and this is a chance to get that done.

Individually, there are no eye-popping numbers, for two reasons.  First, they don't score, and second they run crazy depth.  They have 14 players averaging 8 minutes or more a game and appear to regularly run a rotation of 12 or 13. Their only double-figure scorer is Clarke Rosenberg, who scores about 12 PPG, but on 39% shooting and 26% on 68 3FG attempts (ouch).  Their best 3FG shooter is freshman Anthony Glover.  Their best rebounder is 6'4" Trayvon Palmer.

So, that's the story.  This is a game BG should win....that's why it is on the schedule.  Since we lost the last one at home under similar circumstances...I have a feeling that's not going to happen.  BG will need to handle the pressure and play solid D, convert at the line, but this is a game BG should win.

Happy New Year to the Falcon Nation....

Happy New Year to the Falcon Nation...this is a natural day for reflection and re-energizing. Truthfully, nothing stops us from doing this every day, so maybe that's a good goal for 2015.  Let the success and failure of the past go...as St. Francis said, " Let us begin again for up until now we have done nothing."