Cleveland State Preview

So, the Cleveland State Vikings are next on the schedule.  This is an opportunity for BG to get a road win, that's for sure.  CSU is 2-7 this year, with wins over Urbana and #342 South Carolina State.  They lost to #222 Samford and #210 IPFW at home, as well as @Toledo (by 12) and Kent at home (by 4).  They also pressed DePaul, trailing by 4 with the ball in the final minute of the game.

They were picked for #6 in the Horizon by Blue Ribbon and #7 by their own media.  With that said, BG has already lost to the team picked to finish last.

They were 12-23 last year and 6-12 in the conference.  A #8 seed, they made a run in the Horizon tourney and almost made it.  They lost 3 starters and a key reserve from that team and have six new players.  Their coach told Blue Ribbon they were "starting over."  Kenpom shows them to be one of the 30 youngest teams in the country.

Tempo-wise, we can hope for an up-paced game.  BG and CSU both move at 72 possessions per game.

It won't be surprising to know that CSU has not been good on either side of the ball.  Looking first at their offense, they are scoring .97 PPP, which is really bad.  National average .93.  They are just as bad on defense, allowing 1.08 PPP.  They are ranked #286 in both on kenpom.

When CSU has the ball, you see why that all is.  They shoot below national average, but turn the ball over more than average and poor offensive rebounders.  They do a good job getting to the line, but are poor FT shooters at 65%, though not as bad as BG (63%).  They love the 3--43% of their FGs are 3FGs--but make them 34% of the time, which is just a little bit above the average.  They only make 48% of their 2FGs.

That would all be comforting except for BG's difficulty defending Hartford, who unleashed a similar attack against BG Saturday.  In fact, BG is #310 in the country defending the 3FG.  Also, BG does not force turnovers so it will be interesting to see if CSU can handle the ball against us.

On the defensive side, they are bad at everything.  They are easy to shoot against, don't turn the ball over, can be beaten on the boards and allow a lot of FTs.  They defend the 3 very effectively but don't defend the 2FG very well.  This should be well-suited for BG, unless we try to match their jump shooting attack, which seemed to be what happened in Hartford.  Teams are going to pack in on Wiggins but jumpers aren't the only answer to that.  Also, BG is not set up to take advantage of their tendency to foul.

Their top player is Tyree Appleby, who is a SO returning starter.  He's scoring 14.7 per game on 41% and 33% shooting, which is not terribly efficient, but somebody does have to shoot the ball.  He has 40 assists (4.4 per game) over 34 TOs.  Their other double-figure scorer is Stefan Kenic, a 6'9" Serbian scoring 10.4 on 43% and 38% shooting.  Their leading rebounder is 6'7" Jalaam Hill, at 6.1 per game.  He's a JUCO transfer.  They also have a FR 6'6" guy named Seth Millner, who is scoring 9.6 per game and shooting 47% and 50%.

They play a deep rotation, with 10-11 guys getting in most games and the most-played player topping out at 30 minutes a game, something to keep in mind when you look at the stats above.

This is a game at the start of the year you would have expected BG to win.  I wouldn't be shocked if BG won but it's far from something that can be counted on, given how BG has played in other games.

BG Announces Assistant #8

The Football announcements keep coming.  Seven assistants and a strength coach were announced yesterday.  Today, the school announced that LaMarcus Hicks will return as secondary coach.  BG has kept three coaches from the previous staff, all on defense:  Pelini, Schoonover and now Hicks.

Two coaches remain to be selected.  One is the d-line and I would suspect one is a special teams guy.  The previous staff broke CBs and S out seperately, but Hicks is announced as secondary.

Anyway, it will all be revealed soon enough.

For my money, Pelini just picked the defensive staff a year ago.  If he's going to lead the defense, then it makes some sense you'd retain the assistants if they're happy and you're happy.

More to come....

UPDATE:

BGSU announces secondary coach LaMarcus Hicks will return. CBs coach DJ Gomes and DL Coach Jimmy Williams were not retained. A few more positions to fill for Loeffler.

— Nick Piotrowicz (@NickPBlade) December 4, 2018

First Round of Assistants Announced

Coach Loeffler announced his first round of assistants and showed that he is committed to building a program...starting with his staff.  The University also showed that it understands what was wrong with the Jinks staff, because every bio of one of the new assistants highlights his experience as a coach.  There's also a tabulation floating around that says the staff has an average of 22 years (or something) of coaching experience.

You can see the full story here.  Here is a summary with some general thoughts.

First, Loeffler, as expected, cleaned house on the offensive side of the ball.  All of the original Jinks assistants are now gone.  This includes Seth Doege, whose brother is our QB.

On defense, Loeffler did keep Carl Pelini.  I'm happy with this because I think he's a good coach and a former head coach and he provides some depth on the defensive side of the ball that Loeffler does not have.  For those of you who think Pelini did an awful job with the defense this year, I will have a post up on that in due time.  When we get some players, Pelini will coach a very solid defense and the players respect him.

The only defensive coach retained right now is Jacob Schoonover, the LB coach.  The d-line and D-backs coaches are not known at this time.

The biggest news was Terry Malone at OC.  This is his second stint in that job.  He was here from '86 to '95.  He has coached all over the place, including at UM, Purdue, the Saints for Sean Payton, etc.  He was at WMU when he took this job.  He's got experience and ability.  He will also coach the line, which I contend was the most poorly coached position group on our team over the last three years.  He's done enough to provide Loeffler with the support he needs as a new head coach.

The RB coach is a guy named Chris Hedden.  He has coached all over the place, including being the head coach at St. Francis.  He's currently OC at Trine, a DIII school in Indiana.  That team has a RB who is a semi-finalist for the DIII player of the year award and is #4 in the nation in rushing.  He was also an assistant at UT for 8 years.

Erik Campbell will coach the WRs, after a 30 year career, much of it in the Big Ten and some in the CFL.

Max Warner will coach QBs, as I noted yesterday.

The TE coach will be Louie Addazio.  The son of BC Coach Steve Addazio, he's a GA at OSU right now.

And the strength coach, Kevin Tolbert, was at UM for the last 3 years and will SF and Stanford before that, as he moved along with Coach Harbaugh.

So, here's the thing.  Coach said that he was going to find the best staff in the country, and I think he's done a great job putting a team together and doing it fast.  Clearly, this was not the first time he had thought about it.  The only guys without collegiate assistant coaching experience so far are Warner and Addazio.  That's in contrast to the last staff, for sure, where most of them had a resume like Addazio's.

And not to say Addazio won't be a good coach.  He grew up around it, worked at OSU, etc.  Just saying that instead of having a full staff of people like that, he's the only one and can continue to learn from the other coaches.

I think BG fans will be happy with this staff.  The last two positions remain to be filled, but the opening announcement of the Loeffler Era shows a coach who's prepared and ready to re-build this program.

MAC Title and Bowl Games

So, a quick football update.

All year, I've been looking forward to NIU and Buffalo in the MAC final.  These were both really good teams, well coached and I felt it would be an excellent matchup.

And it was.  Buffalo seemed to have it won, but NIU mounted a furious comeback to take the title, 30-29.  Rod Carey has clearly been underrated as a head coach.  They were off last year, were predicted to win it this year and they did.  Meanwhile, Lance Leipold has the Buffalo program loaded and ready to compete, and we know he's used to sustaining success.

The bowl bids are also out.  In all, 6 bowl games will include MAC teams.  Miami was the only bowl-eligible program to not make it, and they were 6-6.

Overall, the matchups are not bad.  As normal, the MAC is matched up with G5 programs, not P5 programs, which I think would be everyone's preference.  For example, the NIU/UAB game is interesting because UAB won their conference and therefore it is hot champion-on-champion action.  Toledo will take on Florida International, QB'd by former BG QB James Morgan.  WMU and BYU is a good matchup--BYU is a name opponent, though they are deprived of a trip to the warm weather.  Also, all 3 are non-Sun Belt games.

EMU in a bowl game is interesting just because it is.  So much credit for what Chris Creighton has done there.  Also, Georgia Southern was 9-3 and play the same soul-crushing running attack they did when they embarrassed the Falcons in '15.  And Sun Belt.

I'm sure Buffalo would rather not be playing a Sun Belt team, but Troy is a good team with a strong historic program.  They were 9-3 as well.  In addition, they are playing near home.

Ohio might have the easiest game.  San Diego State was only 7-5 but the game is a long way from home.

• Eastern Michigan vs. Georgia Southern (Sun Belt), Raycom Media Camellia Bowl, Dec. 15, 5:30 pm ET (ESPN)
• Northern Illinois vs. UAB (C-USA), Cheribundi Boca Raton Bowl, Dec. 18, 7:00 pm ET (ESPN)
• Ohio vs. San Diego State (Mountain West), DXL Frisco Bowl, Dec. 19, 8:00 pm ET (ESPN)
• Toledo vs. Florida International (C-USA), Makers Wanted Bahamas Bowl, Dec. 21, 12:30 pm ET (ESPN)
• Western Michigan vs. BYU (Independent), Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, Dec. 21, 4:00 pm ET (ESPN)
• Buffalo vs. Troy (Sun Belt), Dollar General Bowl, Dec. 22, 7:00 pm ET (ESPN)

The bowl games are pretty much silly, given the number of teams that make them.  I felt that more strongly when BG was making them on a regular basis.  Anyway, I like to watch these games and I look forward to seeing how our MAC brethren do and I look forward to seeing our program back on this list.

A couple football updates

There's a couple updates on the football program.

First, courtesy Thomas Schmeltz, BG's QB Coach has been selected and has quit his previous job.

His name is Max Warner.  He has been a high school head coach for three years and was a quality control assistant for Virginia Tech for one season, where he undoubtedly ran across Coach Loeffler.  He was at Bloomingdale HS in the Tampa area, where he was 24-10 as a head coach and gave that high school its first ever three straight winning seasons.  He is their all-time winningest coach--by NUMBER OF WINS--after only 3 seasons.

Boston College is playing Boise in a bowl in Dallas and Addazio has been quoted as saying that he expects Loeffler to call plays in that game.

Not going to lie, both of these are giving me some disturbing feelings of deja vu of the kind of things that went on during the last transition.  The staff needs to be judged in total, but if we don't end up with experienced college assistants I think we'll all be pretty disappointed.  And Jinks said that coaching Texas Tech in the bowl game was a mistake he made before his first BG season, saying that it cost him valuable evaluation time.  It is during a dead period, recruiting wise---the game is the day after Christmas.

Falcons Fall in Hartford

The Falcon MBB team had a disappointing result Saturday in Hartford when they lost 76-63 to the Hartford Hawks.  The Hawks were 2-6 coming in and the oddsmakers had this one as even when it tipped, but in the end, BG lost a game they could have won to a team that would probably be in the lower half of the MAC.  It pairs with the Detroit loss to give BG 2 losses to teams with over 200 kenpom rankings and does not lend any hope to the idea BG will exceed expectations this year.

Hartford led for almost all of the first half, going up by as much as 14 and leading by 9 at the break.  They were back up 40-27 in the second half when BG went on a 14-0 run to take a 1-point lead with 11:00 left.

And then, Hartford proceeded to score 36 points in the final 11 minutes against BG's 22 to get the easy win.  They led by as much as 17 in the final minute of the game.  Giving up that many points in 11 minutes is going to make it difficult to win any game, particularly when its the last 11 minutes.  

BG falls to 4-4, with 1 non-D1 win.

It was a slow-paced game at 67 possessions, which was the second slowest game of the season for BG.  The Falcons had a poor offensive game at .95 points per possession.  When you shoot 43% overall and turn the ball over on 27% of your possessions, you will have a hard time getting enough points to win.  BG was effective at 2FG, shooting 55%, but made only 7 of 32 3FGs...that's awful on two fronts.  First, it's 22%.  It's also a huge amount of the overall FGAs...BG hasn't tried 32 treys since the 2017 season and this was a slow-paced game.  In fact, I believe my preview said that BG would be in trouble if they were jacking up 3s against a team that was struggling to defend the 2 and that was just what happened.

Hartford didn't do anything special with field goal shooting...that's right on the national average.  They took really good care of the ball, though, and then got to the line for 24 FTs.  The Hawks were outstanding...making 23 of those 24, while BG was poor, making only 10 of 19. (BG is currently #313 in FT% in the nation).  And that was the difference in the game.  

Individually, Demajeo Wiggins got himself over 1,000 points for his career.  He double-doubled, but was not effective.  He scored 11 on 3 of 7 shooting and 5 of 8 from the line to go with 14 rebounds.  He also had 6 turnovers.  Justin Turner had 17 points, making 7 of 15 overall but only 2 of 7 from 3FG.  Dylan Frye had 10 on 3 of 9 shooting---all 3s.  Five players--Uju, Matiss, Lillard, Laster and Plowden--were 9 of 29 and 2 of 16 from 3FG. Frye and Lillard also had 3 turnovers each.

Anyway, not that it should have been a slam dunk win, but it was certainly a disappointing loss that does not bode well for MAC play.  They have another winnable road game coming up against Cleveland State in a couple days and we'll continue to watch to see BG begin to upgrade its play.

Hartford in December

Hartford in December....it's like poetry.

The Falcon MBB team will find itself playing the Hartford Hawks Saturday in Connecticut.  They play in the America East Conference, which is the #23 conference.  It is also the UMBC conference.  They are picked 2nd in the conference by Blue Ribbon and the official conference poll.

They return 4 starters from a team that was 19-14 last year and played in the CIT.  The year before that they won 9, so this is a team with some serious momentum.  It was the most wins in program history and they extended their coach's contract.

This year they are struggling a little bit at 2-6, with wins over Quinnipiac and a non D1 school, and meaningful losses to Central Connecticut, Iona and Utah Valley on a neutral floor and then Tuesday night to @Sacred Heart, one of the lowest ranked teams in D1. 

After BG, their next game is Cameron Indoor.

So, this team is not playing very well and needs a win.

Stylistically, they play at 70.4 possessions, just slightly above the national average.  They are a high-volume 3-shooting team and are about average at making them.  They are scoring 1.01 per game, which is below average--as they are on everything on the offensive side.  They shoot FTs very well.

On defense, they're giving up 1.06 per game.  They allowed 98 to Sacred Heart.  They do force some turnovers, but they are easy to shoot against (especially the 2FG) and poor on the boards.  Teams don't shoot 3s against them, which we shouldn't either.

They are led by 6'8" Irishman John Carroll.  Other than having a college named after him, he is scoring 18 PPG on 45% and 45% shooting, which is OK but not great.  Shoots a lot of 3s.  He averages 6 RPG.  Sr. Jason Dunne is scoring 14 PPG on 35% and 40% shooting.  His A/T ratio is underwater.

Sr. G JR Lynch is scoring 13.4 on 38% and 24% shooting, which is a rough way to go.  He leads the team with 3.9 assists.  Finally, Aussie George Blagojevic scores 12 PPG on 5% shooting and a team-high 7.1 RPG.  Below 50 from the line.

Last things.  According to the Kenpom measure, they are the team playing the most experienced lineup in the country.  They also have SIX players born outside of North America.

This is a pretty even game that Hartford is being picked to win.  Let me say this.  If you see BG attacking the basket, they should win this one, but if you see them pumping up jumpers than I think the Hawks will get it done.