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MUNCIE, Ind. — Bowling Green’s men’s basketball team suffered through a miserable shooting night and Ball State was able to hold on for a 64-59 victory over the Falcons Thursday.
The Falcons, who led by six in the first half and trailed by 13 in the second half, were able to close within two, 51-49 on Dee Brown’s jumper with 3:11 to play in the game.
BG then got a steal by Scott Thomas, but missed a shot to tie the game and were forced to foul. The Cardinals made 10-of-13 free throws in the final 2:09 to help secure the win.
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“That’s one of the things that Ball State is kind of good at and that’s getting you to play outside-in. They protect the lane." - BG coach Louis Orr
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Ball State also got a big 3-pointer from Jauwan Scaife with 50.9 seconds to play.
The Falcons were still able to pull within two again, 61-59, on Brown’s triple with 12.8 seconds left, but BG could not score again.
After Brown’s basket with 3:11 left the Falcons went 4-of-12 from the field and 1-of-3 from the free-throw line.
“Our guys fight to the end, but I just wish we had played a little bit smarter,” said BG head coach Louis Orr. “We shot too many threes. We have to play inside-out and we have to attack the basket.
“That’s one of the things that Ball State is kind of good at and that’s getting you to play outside-in. They protect the lane,” Orr added. “We didn’t play to our strengths.”
For the game, BG shot 35.4 percent from the field (23-of-65), including 19 percent on 3-pointers (4-of-21) and 60 percent from the free-throw line (9-of-15).
In the first half, Ball State scored the first five points of the contest but Bowling Green came back with a 19-8 run, capped by a Jordon Crawford 3-pointer, to take its largest lead of the game at 19-13. Ball State fought back and Randy Davis’ jumper with two seconds remaining gave the Cardinals a 27-24 halftime advantage.
In the second half, Ball State used an early 10-2 run to take a 44-32 lead and then extended it to 13 on a Terrance Watson layup with 10:23 to go. But that was Ball State’s last field goal until the final minute of action as the Falcons held the Cardinals without a field goal for just over nine minutes to get back into the game.
The Falcons did well on the boards, holding a 43-37 rebounding edge, including 19 offensive rebounds. BG finished with 19 second-chance points.
Brown and Joe Jakubowski each finished with 13 points for the Falcons while Scott Thomas had a double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds. Thomas also had three assists, three steals and two blocked shots.
However, Thomas, who was guarded for a majority of the game by Pierre Sneed, was 5-of-15 from the field, including 0-of-7 on 3-pointers. In his seven previous games before Thursday, Thomas had been averaging 13 points in the second half. He scored eight second-half points against the Cardinals.
With Erik Marschall and Otis Polk in foul trouble, Marc Larson came off the bench for the Falcons to score nine points and grab eight rebounds.
“You can’t have so many empty possessions,” Orr said. “But Ball State is a good defensive team ... During the body of the game we played on their terms.”
Randy Davis led four Ball State players in double figures with 18 points. Jarrod Jones finished with 11 points and 10 rebounds, his sixth double-double of the season.
“We found a way to win tonight,” Ball State head coach Billy Taylor said. “It wasn’t pretty a lot of the times but our guys showed a lot of resiliency and fought through some difficult stretches. We made some big shots down the stretch, hit some free throws late and got some key stops when we needed to. Our guards did a good job setting the tone against their zone and were really aggressive tonight.”
NOTES: BG is now 11-10 overall and 4-5 in the MAC while Ball State is 12-9, 6-3, having won six of its last seven games ... The 21 3-point field goal attempts by the Falcons was a season-high ... BG plays at Western Michigan Saturday with tipoff at 2 p.m ... Kent State hosts rival Akron Saturday at noon. |
