MAC Preview, February 7

And here you have the MAC standings heading into tonight's games.  Jeremy Guy at the MAC has this all sorted out for tie breakers, for now I'm just using home games left as a tie breaker.  Once it gets a little farther along and things shake out a little, we can start to use tiebreakers.  Anyway, this is a very interesting MAC season.  There are 5 teams at 6-3--at least one of these teams won't get a bye.  And then there are two other teams that are 1 game back, so that's 7 teams within one game of the lead.   The one in the most trouble is UT, which plays at home only 3 times in the final 9.  

For today's games....

BG is at NIU...a team they beat by 10 at the Stroh, but at home.  (And a big, physical team that could give BG trouble).

EMU is at OU.  Neither team is a contender right now.

WMU at CMU.  Rivalry game, should be a donnybrook, plus they are tied at 5-4.

UT at BSU.  Rockets might be hitting their stride.  BSU is in last place, but game is on road.  Look for Rockets to close door on this win.

Miami at Kent.  Flashes playing without Jimmy Hall, but should hold serve at home.

Buffalo at Akron.  Marquee game of the day.  Akron coming off a loss,  Buffalo might be best team in MAC.  But can they win at the JAR.

Falcons Beat Chips, By the number

More on the CMU win....

The big challenge for BG was to stop the CMU offense.  The Chips had the best shooting offense in the MAC and was scoring at a highly efficient rate.  It was billed as the best offense against the best defense....and how did it play out.

This is actually a really interesting chart.  BG shot the ball really well.  I'm talking really well.  BG shot 53% and 42% for an effective FG% of 60%, which was their second best shooting game of the season.  So...that was BG exploiting a not-great CMU defense.  Meanwhile BG held CMU to 40.9% and 20%.  That is an effective FG% of 45.5%, which was their fourth worst of the season.

You would not expect a game with that kind of a shooting disparity to be even close.  BG frittered away ALMOST all of that shooting advantage by turning the ball over about 3 times in every 10 possessions, which is their worst game of the year, while CMU took better if not great care of the ball.

For the second straight game, BG struggled mightily against full court pressure.  It was bad.  Might be the one part of the team that is not improved over last year.  They are going to need to figure it out, because I suspect BG will see more of it until they do.  At one point, BG even tried to go over the top on a baseball pass, in both cases throwing the ball away and one time getting it brought all the way back down the floor.

CMU also had a good day on the offensive boards while BG had its second worst game in that respect as well.  I don't know if BG was falling back to protect against the break or if they just weren't getting the boards, but that is a really low number.

Overall, BG had .97 points per possession, which is a tick below the average, whereas CMU scored .95 points per possession which is well below that 1.11 per MAC possession.  Here's the key...they tried 30 threes--the second most for them in a MAC game--and they made 6.  That's right...6.  Hard to win that way.

College Basketball

Individually, the story of the game was Chris Fowler, who was unconscious.  He scored 42 in 42 minutes, playing most of the second half with 4 fouls.  He shot 14 of 23, 2 of 6 from 3FG and 12 of 17 from the line.  DUDE shot 17 FTs.  It was a dominant offensive night where he scored 57% of his team's points.  He had only 2 assists, mostly on account of, oh yeah, 23 shots.  John Simons scored only 10 on 3 of 6 shooting and 7 rebounds.  Other shooters like Rayson, Simmons, Kozinski and Hibbits struggled to get their shots down.

For BG, 5 players were in double figures.  Anthony Henderson had 20 points...20 senior-led, leadership points, with 8 of 12 shooting and 4 of 7 3FG.  He also had 5 rebounds and 3 assists.  Jehvon Clarke had 18 points on 6 of 11 shooting, 2 of 3 from 3FG and 4 steals.  Denny had 12 points...4 of 6 and 1 of 2 shooting and 3 of 4 from the line, including the game clinchers.  He also had 7 rebounds.  Holmes had 10--but on 4 of 5 shooting--with 7 rebounds and Dickerson scored 10 on 4 of 9 shooting with 5 rebounds.  At PG, Joseph went almost the whole way, playing 37 minutes as compared to 9 for Austin.  Jovon had 4 turnovers in those 9 minutes.

So, BG is now 6-3 in MAC play and in a tie for first.  Seven teams are within one game of the lead, so buckle up kids, this could be fun.  BG is in DeKalb on Saturday to try and keep the good times rolling....

Falcon Men Deliver in Final Minute, beat Chips.

Big win last night for BG Men's basketball.  On the road against a team that had yet to lose at home, flu winding through the team, coming off a heart breaking loss, and then delivering the road win.  It was a very good win for the team...and how it happened is just as important as what happened.

The thing started in a bad way.  Again, coming off the big loss, flu bug running through the team, and then 10 minutes into the game CMU had an 11 point lead.  You could have reasonably feared that this would be like the first game at Akron, where it starts like that and just balloons out to a lost night.

It did not.  BG scored the next 7 and had the lead back to 4 and an overall 17-6 run had the game tied with about 90 seconds left.  CMU got a late hoop to head into the locker room up 2, but BG had taken the first punch and was still standing.

Then BG delivered a punch of its own.  In about 3:30 BG went on a 12-1 to open up a 9 point lead.  From there BG held the line for almost the whole way, punching the lead as high as 10 and as close as 3.

With about 2 minutes left, BG was up 5.  Chris Fowler nailed a 3, BG turned it over twice (bringing back memories of the Akron game) before Fowler scored again on a lay to tie the game with 1:30 left.

That's a second punch from the Chips.  Crowd gets in the game, big push, lead evaporated, tired team on the road with the flu...you are standing right on the edge of the cliff.

BG had the ball and Holmes was called for a charge on a really nice play by Fowler--technically that's 3 turnovers in about 60 seconds--and BG got one miss, failed to control the offensive board (hello Akron) and the Chips capitalized with a Fowler jumper to go up 2 with :34 left.

And here is where things changed.  BG came down, Clarke missed a shot and Holmes grabbed the offensive board while John Simon was using a move he borrowed from pro wrestling.  Holmes had 2 shots and he calmly stroked them both to tie the game back up.

CMU still had :12 left and Fowler did what he did all night, which was torch the BG defense (more later) but this time he dished the ball to a wide open Austin Stewart.  Richaun Holmes made what was probably the play of the game...spanning from help defense on Fowler to elevate on Stewart at a very high point and block the shot to preserve the tie.  That kind of agility and the ability to elevate that quickly is just remarkable athleticism.

So, OT.  On the road, flu ridden team.  Anthony Henderson drilled a 3 to start it off and BG got a stop and had a chance to take a two score lead.  Instead, BG turned the ball over.  From there, the game was either tied of a BG lead until 1:30 was left, when Chris Fowler (again) drilled a 3 to put CMU up 1.

Henderson responded with his own 3 and BG had the lead by 2.  Fowler nailed 2 FTs to tie it back up with :55 left.  Jehvon Clarke hit a 2FG jumper to put BG up 2 with :43 left.  On the other end, Fowler (who else) took a 3FG and missed (WOW) and then Simon had the offensive board (seem familiar) except Pep Joseph stole it from him, in what was probably the second play of the game.

It wasn't over yet.  Dickerson was fouled and missed both FTs, so CMU was still down only 2.  This time Kozinski took a relatively low percentage 3FG with :10 left, this time BG cleared the board (Zack Denny) who was fouled, nailed both FTs and BG had secured the win.

I'll look more on how this all happened later, but in the meantime, it was a big win for BG in a game that they had opportunities to lose in the last minutes.  As a contrast to the Akron game, this time they made enough plays to win...it was a gutsy win for our guys and they deserve to be proud of it.  They have not lost 2 straight all season, which to me is the sign of a good team.

Official BG Signing Day Announcement

Above is the official recruiting highlight video for BGSU football today.  You can find the full release with extensive player bios here.

Mid-Day Check In...NSD

OK, so just checking in mid-day on the NSD festivities.  BG has an NLI from 21 players and says the class is complete.

There are 3 names we were expecting to see that we did not...

Justice Hart from Glenville who committed in June is going the JUCO route.
Shemar Moss from Columbus, who our coaches were reaching out to as late as last night on Twitter is not in the class.  No idea where he is going on what happened.  (UPDATE: Moss is reported by BGSU (through John Wagner of The Blade) to be a walk on)
Ryon Lucas, who we mentioned last night is most likely a preferred walk-on, though there is a picture of him "signing" with BG on twitter.

The recruiting news starts at 1 on bgsufalcons.com with Coach's presser at 2.

National Signing Day is here

So today is the day. The faxes start around 7 am. BG will tweet news as it comes in and a 2 pm presser is on the books. Here's how to follow

Updates will also be provided on Twitter at Twitter.com/BG_Footballand fans will be able to ask the coaches questions during a Twitter Takeover during the morning. Use the hashtag #BG15NSD to join the conversation.

Two New Football Verbals....

So tomorrow is the day...all will be revealed.  Two more verbals coming on board tonight.  Watch carefully tomorrow until all the names come in.  Some of BG's recruits are under significant pressure from other programs.

The first is Ryon Lucas of Trotwood-Madison.  He played both ways in HS, seemed to get more of his props as a WR.  Trotwood-Madison is a DIII power in Ohio and Lucas played in two state title games, including last year, losing to Toledo Central Catholic.  This is the same HS that Ferrod Gardner attended.  Gardner was a BG commit who de-committed and today made a verbal to Missouri.

Lucas was  productive HS receiver...in fact, was 6th in his conference with 32 receptions at 19.7 YPC and 9 TDs.  He was all-GWOC North.  He is 6'0" and 157, which is light.  It is not clear whether he would play WR or DB at BGSU.

The other verbal is Kyle Junior.  His dad was EJ Junior from Alabama fame, and he went to HS in Middletown, a longtime source of players for BG.  Kyle had offers from UC, Ball State, WMU and BG.  He is a DE with 53 tackles, six tackles for loss, two forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries (one for a 78-yard touchdown) and three sacks this   season.  He was all-district special mention and all-conference.  He is 6'3" and 245, and might fill the spot opened with Rahn Bailey left to attend the Naval Academy.

Welcome to the Falcons, Ryon and Kyle.