This story was supposed to be written before tip-off. BG was going to complete their season sweep of the Mid-American Conference’s West division and extend their win streak to seven games, which would have been their longest streak in eight years.
That didn’t happen.
Eastern Michigan (4-21, 2-9 MAC) shocked the Falcons by jumping out to an early lead and holding on to it the entire game, eventually beating BG 65-57.
“They were punch drunk, and it took them a while to get back in the game,” EMU head coach Charles Ramsey said.
Coming into the game, BG (14-10, 7-4 MAC) had the look of a team on the rise. They’d been winning the games they were supposed to, they’d torn through the West division and they’d been seeing big efforts from key players.
BG started the game off crawling through the first half and headed into the break trailing 25-15.
In the first half, BG shot 6-23. Chris Knight led the team in scoring with four points, off of two dunks.
“We missed some easy shots that we missed early; that’s a sign of not being ready,” senior Nate Miller said.
Still, there was a sense BG would somehow bring the game back and escape with a win.
In the second half, the Falcons launched a series of comebacks, eventually cutting the lead to three.
Still, it seemed as though every shot that BG threw at EMU, the Eagles had a counterpunch for.
In one instance, Miller drove to the basket and finished with an acrobatic lay up, then senior Brian Moten nailed a three pointer, but EMU followed it up with a three pointer of their own.
That EMU three was scored by senior Zane Gay, who finished the game with 17 points, including five three-pointers.
Gay managed to elude the BG defense all night, getting open shots that always seemed to kill BG runs.
To BG’s credit though, they kept fighting until the very end.
With just one minute to play, the Falcons trailed by 10 as fans filed out of the stadium. Miller brought the ball up court and hurled up a three-pointer that fell to cut the lead to seven. Moments later Darryl Clements stole a pass and found Miller, who once again nailed a big three pointer, cutting the deficit to four points.
Miller couldn’t finish off the improbable comeback though, as he missed a routine lay up the next time down the floor.
Following the miss, the game turned into BG fouling EMU and EMU making free throws.
“We didn’t compete at the level that every game takes to win,” head coach Louis Orr said.
After the game, both Miller and Orr admitted the Falcons may not have been ready for last night’s game, and it was possible the Falcons overlooked EMU in anticipation of their game in Buffalo on Wednesday.
“We’ve done some really good things up until tonight,” Orr said. “Not to take anything away from EMU, but from where I sit, it was more about us than it was about them.”
No matter how it happened, the Falcons lost to a very bad team last night. The Eagles came in with three total wins and started three freshmen and one sophomore.
With teams like Buffalo and Miami still on the Falcons’ schedule, it was clear BG was likely going to be brought back down to earth at some point. It just wasn’t supposed to be EMU that brought them crashing down to earth.
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Contact assistant sports editor Jason Jones at [email protected].
