Just before the dawn of the new men’s college basketball season, the polls are once again doing all the talking. They say Illinois and Duke are battling it out as the best teams in the country, Kent State is tabbed to win the Mid-American Conference East Division and the Bowling Green men’s squad will finish a distant fourth in the conference.
It’s not until the season gets in motion that we’ll find out who’s got the team that will go the distance and who’s got the squad opposing fans will chant “overrated” to.
BG premieres in its first exhibition of the season Sunday at 2 p.m. against the Argentina Select team at Anderson Arena. BG coach Dan Dakich enters his fifth year with the Falcons and has one of his biggest squads yet.
Leading the way for the BG are the Falcons’ four seniors. Guards Keith McLeod and Brandon Pardon are considered by many around the conference to be the best backcourt in the MAC. McLeod ranks eighth in BG history in three-point field goal percentage (.389), 11th in steals (111) and 24th in scoring with 1,140 pints. The 6-foot-2-inch senior averaged 18.1 points last season.
Pardon, who has only started 38 career games after transferring from Wright State is only the third player in Falcon history to hand out over 200 assists. Last season he was the MAC leader and fourth in the country in assists, averaging seven per game.
BG will also have the supporting cast of two senior big men. Forward Brent Klassen and center Len Matela have a combined six letters between them. Matela is third all-time at BG in field goal percentage, making over half his shots at 57.3 percent. He is a two-time MAC honorable mention winner.
Klassen averaged 4 points and 2.7 rebounds last season. In his last two years he has captured the Earl Rupright Team Spirit award.
The Falcons are second in the MAC in wins since 1999, behind Kent State, with 36. Last season the team finished fourth in the country in free throw percentage (76.7 percent) and 22nd in 3-point percentage with an average of 38.9 percent.
BG opens its regular season at the Top of the World Classic in Fairbanks, Alaska. The Falcons will play their first game against Ole Miss, who made the Sweet 16 last season. Other teams in the tournament include Alaska-Fairbanks, Washington, Delaware, Wichita State, Butler and Radford.
