Bowling Green 87 Valparaiso 70

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

I hate to admit (although anyone can tell with just a cursory examination of how this blog works) that this is just the second BG basketball game I've made it to this season. In general, I still consider games at Anderson Arena to be must-attend events, but extreme winter weather and several other factors have been conspiring against me.

All that said, I've still been following the team as closely as possible through streaming Internet video when available and streaming Internet audio otherwise. I was well aware, at any rate, of the struggles the Falcons have had at times this season with scoring the basketball. Even on grainy or pixelated Internet feeds, they're sometimes hard to watch. So it was awesome to be at a game in which that wasn't an issue. They were able to score pretty much at will, with all five starters ending the game in double figures (and sophomore Scott Thomas posting a double-double). I can't think of anyone that didn't look like they had a good game. I find Thomas to be a really impressive player all around. I do wish, though, that senior center Otis Polk would have, at some point during his playing career, figured out how to continue playing solid defense without fouling so much. It's a lot of fun to watch him play, but he just doesn't log many minutes.

And it was a win over a pretty solid opponent, too. Valparaiso is currently in fourth place in the Horizon League (credit goes to ESPN's BracketBuster event for a non-conference game so late in the season), but that's a pretty good mid-major basketball league. You know the Crusaders, of course, from the highlight shown each year during March Madness of the buzzer-beating 3-point shot that allowed them, as a 13 seed, to upset 4 seed Ole Miss in the first round of the 1998 NCAA Tournament, on the basketball equivalent of football's hook and lateral play. That shot was made by Bryce Drew, who is now an assistant coach with Valpo, and his dad, Homer Drew, is now and was then Valpo's head coach.

Anyway, as I mentioned, it was good to see BG come out aggressive and be able to score and build a big lead early. It was almost too big of a lead, actually - they led 49-24 at halftime, which led to what looked like a little complacency in the second half. They were obviously trying to slow the game down, but they got a little sloppy and let Valpo at least entertain some thoughts of getting back into the game. Personally, I would have liked to see the Falcons stay aggressive, put their foots on the Crusaders' throats, but that's just me - I think that's always the way to go until the game is unquestionably out of reach. And to give the Falcons the credit they deserve, they weathered everything Valpo threw at them, and whenever the Crusaders made a run, they'd get a little run of their own going to push the lead back up close to where it was before. So that was nice to see.

Finally, I'd just like to send out a plea to BG Athletics' marketing department to can all the games and gimmicks going on during official timeouts. Seriously. They've been doing this for quite some time, but the inanity of it hit me anew during this game, possibly because this is only the second game I've been to this season and I've been away from it for a while. I realize this is probably an effort to get more people to come to the games, but it's not working. I mean, the arena was less than half full, and that was even with a decent-sized singing group there for the National Anthem, plus the fact that it was SICSIC beheading day and senior day for the cheerleading squad and dance team. A much better strategy would be to just let the band and cheerleaders do their thing during timeouts; the marketing crap just drains whatever energy the crowd has managed to build during the action. Case in point: at one point during this game, there was a minor scuffle underneath the north basket, and the crowd got at least a little frothy. But as the officials called their timeout to sort things out, here comes "Brian from Marketing" to play some asinine game, and there went the energy. Instead, the band should have been playing the theme from Rocky or something, and the cheerleaders should have been leading a BG-SU chant. Or something. Feed the fire, instead of dousing it.

Look, I speak from experience on this. When I first came to BG in the fall of 1997, I wasn't the world's biggest basketball fan. Once I started going to games at Anderson Arena, though, I was hooked. Why? Because it's a small, cramped arena, with the crowd right on top of the action, and the place would get loud. It fed on itself. It would start to get loud; you'd see the Falcons feeding off of it, and the visitors getting rattled (I'm looking at you, Andy Hipsher); then it would get louder. And that was awesome. The games were so much fun, and I got addicted. Don't get me wrong, the band and cheerleaders didn't always have the right song or cheer at exactly the right moment, but they did their best to add to the energy. Being there was  electric, and I loved it. It made Anderson Arena one of my favorite places in the world, and the games were the highlight of my week. When I think back on my time at BG, basketball is the first thing that comes to mind. Now, Anderson is still one of my favorites places, but that atmosphere is completely gone. And the timeout crap isn't the only contributing factor in its demise, but it is a factor. There's only one season of basketball left at Anderson after this one, and I'd like to see at least one game in that time with a crowd that's just balls-out insane. If they really want to build a crowd, a following, I think getting rid of the marketing crap and letting the atmosphere speak for itself would be the best first step they could make.