Happy Easter to the Falcon Nation.....

Happy Easter to the Falcon Nation.  Regardless of your religious faith, we can all unite around the idea of a new beginning.  One happens every day.

Men's basketball, Opponent recap....

Now that the dust is settling a little bit, we can start to look back at the men's basketball season and review what we saw.  The first step will be to look at how our opponents fared over the course of the year.  Sometimes you play a team early in the year and you win or you lose and you don't find our later what that might have meant.  So, I think it is good to see how our opponents did...

First, BG played a schedule with a strength of 198 (out of 347), based on the RPI of our opponents.  That's out of 347, so we are just in the bottom half.  (Kenpom has our schedule ranked 212 and our non-conference schedule ranked 298).

In fact, the biggest issue for our team was that BG was 7-7 against teams with an RPI over 200.  Of those 7 losses, 5 were road games (North Dakota, CMU, Miami, Buffalo and IPFW), one was home (Miami) and one was neutral (IUPUI).  The inability to beat even bad teams on the road even once in a while kept this team from a shot at finishing .500 for the season.

And then there was one home and one neutral floor game that BG should have won, as well.

For whatever it is worth, BG's RPI was 269 and kenpom was 204.

(Note: the RPI is sort of the establishment ranking that the NCAA uses. Kenpom is a ranking from kenpom.com that is more favored by stats dudes.  It factors in margin of victory/defeat and digs a little deeper to determine SOS.  You can learn more here from Dean Oliver, the man who started all this.)

So, for these rankings, you will see something like this, which is RPI/Kenpom.

To wit:  BG was 269/204.

Kenpom rewards BG for close games against MSU and South Florida, for example.

Anyway, here is what our opponents did, focusing on non-conference games.  I think we are familiar with the body of work for our conference brethren.

Lake Erie (8-18) DII

BG beat Lake Erie by 10 at the Stroh.  They were 8-18 in DII and finished 7th in the GLIAC's South Division.

Cleveland State (14-18) 199/265 T-7 in Horizon

BG lost by 6 on a neutral floor.  Cleveland State did not distinguish themselves in 12-13.

IUPUI 6-26, last in Summit, lost last 16 games.  326/336

Far and away the worst loss of the BG season.  Losing by 14 to these guys on a neutral floor is just inexplicable.

@Robert Morris (24-11)  NEC Regular season champ.  Beat KY in NIT before losing to Providence.  123/133

BG lost by 11 in what amounted to a road game.  Robert Morris ended up winning their conference and shocking Kentucky in the NIT, making them the only team to beat BG and Kentucky in the same year.  (I made that up.  They might not be).  This was a good team.

Alabama-Huntsville DII  25-6 #9 ranked.  Lost in NCAA South Regional Championship.

BG won by 14 on a neutral floor.  While a DII team, they were a very good team and better than a few of our D1 wins, probably.

Detroit  20-13.  Horizon #2 in reg. season.  Lost to Az State in NIT.  64/79

Our best win of the season.  BG won by 5 at the Stroh, entering as a 4.5 point dog.  This is one BG won that they probably should not have, on paper.

YSU 18-16.  T-5th in Horizon.  Lost to Canisius in CIT.  188/200

BG lost by 9 at home.  After the IUPUI loss, this one has to be high on the list of ones you'd like to get back.

Wright State 23-13, T-3rd in Horizon. Lost conference title game.  Won 2 games in CBI.  130/117

BG's second-best non-conference win.  Wright State was very competitive and nearly made the Big Dance.

Samford 11-21, T-5th in Southern Conf.  291/283

BG won by 15 at home, as it should have.

Michigan State 27-8.  T-2 in Big 10.  Sweet 16.  9/7.

BG loses by 11, makes a reasonable showing.

@South Florida 12-19.  T-13 in Big East.  156/145

Triple overtime defeat.  BG came close to a nice road win here and really should have won the game.

@North Dakota 16-17.  3rd in Big Sky.  Lost in CBI.  224/247

North Dakota won by 3 on their floor.

@Temple 24-10.  T-3 in A-10.  Lost to Indiana, round of 32.  41/61

BG destroyed on road by much better team.

New Orleans  8-18.  346/346

BG beats New Orleans at the Stroh.  Privateers second lowest ranked team in both systems.

@IPFW 16-17.  5th in Summit.  254/241.

Bracket buster defeat for BG...another winnable road game.

Falcon football has first verbal....

The first verbal of the 2014 class has made himself known...his name is Brian Sanders and he's a 6'4" 225 pound D-end from Detroit Cass Tech.  Cass Tech will be shooting for back-to-back-to-back (an "Emanski") state titles this Fall, so this is a winning program that has been producing college players--according to this, on the last signing day 12 Cass Tech seniors signed for D1 or DII ball.

If you dig through the stories, you can find evidence of Sanders getting sacks during last year's title run.  I like his twitter handle--nothing wrong with having goals--and he likes BG's business program. He's also hoping to bring a few of his teammates with him to BG, which we would also be in favor of....

Welcome to the Falcons, Brian.

Christopher Leaving BG

Breaking news from the Falcon Nation.  AD Greg Christopher is leaving BGSU to head to Xavier University as their Director of Athletics.

He walks into a pretty good situation.  No football program to worry about, and a basketball program that is heading into the "Catholic 7" Big East and is a premier mid-major program possibly about to be full-major, all-major, whatever.

Christopher certainly has had his detractors within the University, though I think he has a record of success.  He created significant progress with our facilities, including the Sebo Center, work on the Doyt and the Stroh Center.

This very prowess has led him to be labelled as only a fundraiser, especially those who are frustrated with progress in men's basketball.

I don't find that fair.  Yes, the Orr hire has not gone as well as we might have expected, but he appears to have hired a good football coach, a good hockey coach, and the early returns are good for the volleyball coach, the women's basketball coach the softball coach, the gymnastics coach and the swimming coach.  In the last two years (11-12 and 12-13) BG has won 4 MAC coach of the year honors with Christopher hired coaches...softball, women's basketball, swimming and gymnastics and the women's volleyball coach won the MAC in her first season.  Anyway, this fundraising-only charge does not stand up to the facts.

(Thanks to @jknavel for the help getting my facts right in paragraph above).

Anyway, it may be too soon to tell on many of those hires, but it is certainly too soon to tell that they didn't work, too.

For most of the last years, BG has languished among the lower teams in the MAC's all-sports standings, certainly a reflection of overall performance.

At the same time, the academic achievement appears to be pretty strong.

Currently, BG languishes among the lesser funded athletic programs in the MAC and is one of the few mid-majors in the country to have football, two basketball programs and an ice hockey program.

There will be more time for all of this.  For today, we wish Greg Christopher well.

Men's Hoops: Two scholarships

One thing that has been missed for BG's men's basketball program has been that the team has two scholarships available for next year.  We should hear pretty soon what's going on with that, since the signing period for men's basketball opens on April 17 and runs through the middle of May.

Jack Carle of the Sentinel suggested in his column about the Orr Decision that BG should consider getting JUCO players that can make an immediate impact on the program.  In general, I think that we all feel like that isn't a best case scenario, but this program is not at a best-case scenario--we are in trouble.

I agree...if BG can find JUCO players who will play within the system, I think they need to do it.  One of the big concerns people had keeping Orr was "losing" a year for the program.  And, I have already written about concerns for next year, notably at PG and someone to score.

Both of those could be addressed in the JUCO ranks.  A Martin Samarco type player and a PG who could play right away would help to create a shot for next year's team to be at least as good as this year's team was, and maybe a little better.

The Orr-haters are going to say it is nothing but a cynical attempt to keep his job.  I guess I'm ambivalent about that...if we had the chance to get ourselves competitive next year with those two scholarships, I don't know why you wouldn't do it.  With Orr entering a lame duck year, it might be tough to get quality high school players anyway--and many of the best sign early, as our 3 other signees did--so it might be the best use of them anyway.

Falcons Scrimmage For the First Time (Update for Dieter)

The football team scrimmaged for the first time this season yesterday.  I was not there, but there is a snippet on bgsufalcons.com where Coach is interviewed about how it went.

He basically felt like offense had a good day.  Of course, the D-line is very depleted, so you need to know whether that plays a role.  As he said, the defense is still getting used to the idea that #91 is not rushing the passer anymore.

There was a lot of talk about Kendall Montgomery, who is now playing DE on a regular basis.  Coach talks about his athleticism and size in making him an edge pass rusher.  He had a couple of sacks last year in limited time.

Also, Andre Givens is having a good Spring.  RB is wide open for BG--WR Travis Greene is working out at RB as well.  Martin and Hopgood are coming off injuries, and of course there are 4 FR coming in this Fall and Samuel is still a question mark.

He is looking for explosive plays.  He said Givens made some, as did Gehrig Dieter, though he is not eligible this season.  (Update: Jack Carle of the Sentinel reported today that Dieter might actually be eligible and is waiting to hear from the NCAA.  This would be a pretty big development for WR-challenged BG).

The QBs are splitting the reps exactly evenly.  Coach said (correctly) that he isn't going to give a stock market report after every scrimmage.

Tough Night for Akron...

Ouch.  Difficult night for the Zips.  They were starting already down Alex Abreu against a really good VCU team that matches up best against teams that don't handle the ball well.  And then you lose an 11 minute a game guy to a back injury and a starter to the flu and another 11 minute a game guy to the flu and you are just really up against it.

VCU took full advantage, laying a "butt whooping" (Dambrot's words) on the Zips.

I feel badly for them.  You work all year to get to the NCAAs, and then you get the flu in what might end up being your only shot...that's got to be heart-breaking.  And, for what was a pretty special season for the Zips, you have a pretty disappointing finish.

It was still a great season, and they will realize it in time.  Things just stacked up against them and VCU is the kind of team that doesn't just beat you by a little when that happens.

One last thing...for those tools from OU who were sniping, including Tyler Tettleton...Akron beat you 3 freaking times.  Shut up.