Bowling Green 63 Northern Illinois 59

Men's Basketball
Home Team: BGSU Falcons
Visiting Team: Northern Illinois Huskies
Venue: Anderson Arena (Bowling Green, Ohio)
Game Time: 2:00 p.m.
Fellow Attendees: None

This was a great college basketball game between two teams in similar situations: brand new head coaches, teams not really expected to do much of anything in conference. What the final outcome boiled down to, I think, was the fact that BG was playing at home. On the road, I'm not sure they pull this one out. Of course, it would have helped even more if a bigger or more enthusiastic crowd had been on hand, but at least no crowd of visiting fans tried to take over the arena either.

Despite their record, NIU isn't that bad of a team. They play hard, and they're fairly solid. BG led for much of the game, but anytime they'd start to build a lead, the Huskies would cut back into it. That was the pattern until NIU finally took a 59-56 lead with around four minutes left in the game. The Falcons held them scoreless from there and put up enough points to secure the win for themselves. The exclamation point was added when Nate Miller stole the ball near halfcourt and took it down for a dunk with just a couple of seconds left.

I'd just like to point out, if I haven't done so before, that I love to watch these guys play zone defense. They're so disruptive. That's what's given them a chance to win some of these games lately that, at the beginning of the season, it was thought we might not be in. Another nice thing, as it pertains to defense, is our low post defense. We're leading the MAC in blocked shots, which is a pretty fun thing to see. Our center tandem of Marc Larson and Otis Polk isn't lighting it up offensively on most nights (although Otis has flashes from time to time), but they're getting the job done on the other end, and that's awesome.

The next area in which this team needs to improve, in my own humble and uninformed opinion, is finishing around the basket. So many times, in this game and others, we've gotten decent looks from close range, only to have the ball bounce or roll off the rim. We've been able to eke out some close wins, but getting some of those points would maybe make the ends of games a little more comfortable. And with the way the Falcons have already improved in leaps and bounds in several areas this season, I have no doubt that this issue will be getting its due attention.

Also, with all the games I've seen in Anderson Arena over the years, I've heard many, many renditions of the Star-Spangled Banner. On this day, I heard perhaps the finest so far. I didn't catch the young lady's name, only that she was an eighth grader from Sandusky. She was very, very good.