Bowling Green 59 St. Louis 50

Men's Basketball
Home Team: BGSU Falcons
Visiting Team: St. Louis Billikens
Venue: Anderson Arena (Bowling Green, Ohio)
Game Time: 7:00 p.m.
Fellow Attendees: Brandi

 Hard as it is for me to believe, this was my first trip to Anderson Arena since the last home game of last season, which was in March. Since this was my first time seeing this year's squad play in person, I spent most of the pregame warmup period going over the program and familiarizing myself with the newcomers.

Aside from seeing this year's team for the first time, I was also interested in this game in particular because of the opponent, the St. Louis Billikens, led by Coach Rick Majerus. I wasn't paying attention when he was coaching at Ball State, but I watched his teams play quite a bit when he was at Utah, and I've always liked him as a coach. I was looking forward to seeing one of his teams play in person, and I thought they'd be a good test for the Falcons.

I was pleasantly surprised when BG came out strong, taking and building a lead early. St. Louis didn't even score until nearly seven minutes into the game, and none of their starters scored in the first half at all. The Falcons were running an active zone defense, spreading it out into a trap occasionally to mix things up, and the Billikens just couldn't solve it. That let BG run the lead out to as many as twenty in the second half before they got a little sloppy toward the end and let St. Louis whittle the lead down to the final margin.

BG pretty much dominated the game, but I still found myself impressed with St. Louis, at least on the defensive end. I liked their aggressive style, especially how they doubled the ballhandler on just about every screen. They pressured the Falcons into quite a few turnovers - fortunately, they weren't able to turn those turnovers into points on a regular basis.

For the Falcons, I was impressed with the post play of center Otis Polk, who continues to evolve as a player. He's always been a defensive force, due to his size and bulk, if nothing else. He still has some work to do in keeping his fouls under control (although he's light years ahead of where he was when he came in), but he's developed into a strong offensive force to complement his work on the other end. It's going to be fun to watch him in MAC play. I also really enjoyed watching freshman guard Jordon Crawford. He's tiny (5'6") but quick, and seems pretty heady for a freshman, and he's got a nice touch on his shot.

So yes, this was my first time seeing the Falcons play this year, but it won't be the last. I'll be making the trip to BG whenever possible for the remainder of the season. I just hope the weather cooperates - the snow on the drive back to Troy was a bit of a nightmare. It was so heavy around Bluffton that we couldn't even see the lines on the interstate. We just had to slow down and feel our way along until it finally started to clear up a bit around Lima.