We had the privilege of being on the College Football Roundtable podcast to talk about the big MAC Championship game on Friday...had a great time, talked some football and even a little Falcon basketball. Check it out and enjoy!
We are still having PTSD from the results of the last time we wrote a preview for the WKU Hilltoppers, so we are looking for our Falcon Men to go down to Bowling Green (KY) and exorcise those demons.
BG has played the 'Toppers three times since 2010, with WKU winning twice...once at EA Diddle Arena and once at Anderson. BG won by 12 last year at the Stroh in one of the year's higher moments.
WKU is a good program. They have 20 wins each of the last 2 seasons, and two years ago put a fright into Kansas in the first round of the Big Dance. They have been to the Sweet Sixteen twice since the 1990s.
Four starters return from last year's team, but they are in a new conference, where they are picked by Blue Ribbon to be 5th. This year, they are 2-3, with a win over Austin Peay at Diddle (just like saying it) and over St. Joe's, a down A-10 at Madison Square Garden. They lost @Minnesota and @Stony Brook and then at home to Belmont, so while there are no quality wins there are no bad losses either.
WKU has struggled to score the basketball this year. They have only .91 points per possession. They are shooting only 40% and 32% and are turning the ball over on 24% of their possessions, both of which are mitigated by good offensive rebounding. They do a decent job of getting to the line, but hit only 63% when they are there.
Coach Babers had a presser today in prep for a big week leading up to the Championship game. He had a couple interesting things to say. They were not unpredictable, but they were interesting.
He was asked about the last loss.....
He said he was disappointed. He hopes the players were disappointed, because a bad thing had happened within "the family." It was a bad loss and you had to shine a light on it, and that had made it a difficult couple of days.
He said that the loss boiled down to two things...enthusiasm and effort. And he takes full responsibility for that.
After you shine a light on it, though, you need to move on. BG has "earned the right" to play Friday and needs all 3 phases to come together.
He was asked about his level of confidence in James
"Same as any game. HIGH."
Follow up: "And the reason in your eyes for that confidence...?"
"He deserves that. He's earned that right."
Question: Is the leash any shorter now than previously?
"It comes down to what's happening on the football field. Are you able to control what's happening or are you not? Head Coaches and Quarterbacks sometimes get blamed for things that are not their fault...I think a lot of things that happen on the football field and people think its the QB, there are other reasons for it. That position is evaluated based on how I feel he is playing, not how everyone else feels he is playing."
Which is good. He should make the call.
He then proceeded to talk about last year's EIU-NIU game and how they threw a lot because he had a 2nd round draft pick at QB and when he threw the ball it went where he wanted. "That was a big advantage."
Without any apparent awareness of the contrast he had drawn.
Look, there's no doubt that QBs get blamed for everything, even when no one gets open and when WRs go the wrong way, etc. So I understand what he is saying. I have said all along that I expect them to stick with Knapke because he represents the best chance to win, and if that's the case, you can't be half in. You gotta be all in.
Two player of the week honors for the Falcons this week...
The first was no surprise. I wrote yesterday about Richaun Holmes and the day he had at Calihan Hall yesterday...combined with his production against Southeast Missouri State he was the MAC East Player of the Week. Congrats to Richaun.
For the week, Holmes averaged 20 points, 12.5 rebounds and 3.0 blocks per contest on 61.5 percent shooting from the field overall.
Clint Stephens, a true freshman, was named MAC East Special teams Player of the week for his performance against Ball State, which mostly consisted of a school-record 96 yard TD return.
So how about that. After enduring heart-breaking, rip your heart out of your chest losses last season, BG turned the tables on the Detroit Titans, as Richaun Holmes picked a pass up when BG had 2.2 seconds to score, down 1. You can watch the play above...as many times as you want.
You'd be doing yourself a disservice, though, if you only thought about Richaun Holmes as it related to the last play of the game, as good as it was. Holmes had an incredible night--I'd be hard pressed to remember when the Falcons enjoyed a dominant effort of this caliber. Holmes scored 26 points on 10 of 12 shooting, grabbed 18 rebounds and had 5 blocks, including a block of UD super FR Paris Bass with :45 and BG leading by 1.
I don't remember the last time a Falcon had 18 rebounds. It is tied for the 4th highest total so far in D1 this year. Richaun has been a good player most of the time and a very good player some of the time, but in this game he was simply great. He was as dominant as any player Falcon in recent memory and the buzzer beater was just the closing act.
The end was pretty confusing, as basketball games tend to be. I was watching the WADL telecast (featuring former NBAer Earl Cuerton). BG was inbounding on its own baseline with 2.4 seconds left down 1. They didn't put a guy on the ball and Henderson had a hard time getting the ball in. When he did, it was stolen and then lost OB right away.
They went to the replay and decided there was 2.2 seconds left, which seemed to the Detroit announcers--and Ray McCallum after the game--that there should have been less than that. Anyway, it was 2.2. BG went to inbound the ball and they put the 6'9" Bass on the ball and he seemed to really both Henderson, which is not surprising. BG called time and when they set it up again they had Bass off the ball for reasons I will not understand and that's when they hit Holmes and he made the video you see above.
When I watched the replay, it didn't look that obvious to me and there might be a rule related to how much the clock runs off on something like that. Either way, nothing was stopping them from defending the pass.
Detroit was the first team to score over 60 against BG this year. This is also the second straight game where BG won the game despite being outshot. UDM was 45/39 while BG was 39/29. However, BG created 4 extra possessions by having only 10 turnovers and created a few more by a decisive margin on the offensive boards and that was enough to turn the game. BG had 1.0 per possesion for the 4th straight game and gave up .98, which is their least efficient defensive performance of the season.
Western Kentucky (7-5) Shocked Marshall 67-66
VMI (2-10) Fired Coach
Indiana (4-8) Beat Putdue, won Old Oaken Bucket.
Wisconsin (10-2) Beat Minnesota, won division.
UMass (3-9) Lost to Bufalo
Buffalo (5-6) Beat UMass
Ohio U (6-6) Beat Miami
WMU (8-4) Self-destructed lost to NIU
Akron (5-7) Lost to Kent
Kent (2-9) Beat Akron
Toledo (8-4) Beat EMU
MAC vs. Power 5: 4-22
MAC vs. non-MAC FBS: 3-12
MAC vs. FCS: 11-2
East vs. West: West leads 16-3
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