Bowling Green got their first glimpse of the 2001-02 men’s basketball team last night at Anderson Arena at Hoops ‘n Halloween, a family-themed skills exhibition.

Area kids and BG students got to participate with the team as they performed a dunk exhibition, a three-point shootout, and a 30-minute scrimmage.

BG head coach Dan Dakich started the evening by saluting both the fans and the football team. Football coach Urban Meyer addressed the crowd and acknowledged the two dozen football players sitting in the stands.

In the dunk contest, elementary schoolers and Falcon players made for odd fast break combinations running down the floor. Guard Keith McLeod got one of the loudest cheers of the evening as he took an alley-oop pass, hovered above the rim for a split-second and slammed the ball in.

The three-point shootout pitted guard Brandon Pardon and football’s John Gibson against McLeod and football’s Cole Magner. Pardon struggled for the first couple of shots before finding his stroke and defeating Magner in the first round. Gibson, exhibiting a fairly soft shooting touch for a power running back, also found his stroke after several shots and held his own in the second round against McLeod, but lost.

The main course of the evening was the scrimmage. Both the starters and reserves struggled with turnovers, in large part to pressure from the defense. Josh Almanson began to show himself as an all-around threat as the 6-8 power forward hit several jumpers from the perimeter.

Afterward, Dakich said the point of the evening was to interact with the community.

“We tried to encompass all elements of the community,” he said. “We originally wanted to have midnight madness, but students have class in session (during the week.)”

And the team?

“The defense was pretty good, but the offense stinks,” he said. “We are far beyond where we were a year ago on defense.”

“It was fun, a little different,” center Len Matela said. “It is good to get some kind of reward, show how hard we have been working.”