Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Bowling Green 65 Ball State 64

Men's Basketball
Home Team:
BGSU Falcons
Visiting Team: Ball State Cardinals
Venue: Anderson Arena (Bowling Green, Ohio)
Game Time: 7:00 p.m.
Fellow Attendees: None

Toledo Blade Game Story | Official Box Score

Hard to believe it's been three months since I last attended a sporting event, and nearly a full year since the last time I was at Anderson Arena. A whole slew of extenuating circumstances has contributed to that being the case, which is really unfortunate for me - Anderson is one of my favorite places in the world, and this is the last season it will be hosting BGSU basketball. It happened, though, that this game coincided with my monthly trip to Toledo for work, so I was able to stick around and catch some hoops action before making the drive back to Troy.

I haven't been able to attend any games before this one, but I've watched the Falcons play several times on TV and via streaming video. Still, it was nice to finally see them in person, especially since the core of the team is so young that I didn't see them play last year. I was pretty impressed, especially with A'uston ("The Apostrophe") Calhoun and Cameron Black. They're both raw, but have a lot of potential - Calhoun is already a scoring machine, and Black seemed to have a nice low post game for a true freshman. They definitely need to work on rebounding and getting to loose balls, though, not to mention free throw shooting.

The only thing that bothered me was the complete lack of crowd energy, which is hard to believe for a game like this. Sure, it shouldn't have been as close as it ended up, but still, a close game is a close game. There was very little crowd reaction at all, and that makes me sad for "The House That Roars." It deserves a more raucous final season, but it doesn't look like it's going to get it. I'm hoping for a large, loud crowd for the last game, at least; I'll be there for that one, one way or another.

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