BGSU men’s basketball lost to Miami, 84-79, on Tuesday night. BGSU now holds a 10-8 standing and Miami holds a 9-8 standing within the conference.
The game was senior night for the Falcons. The team honored Justin Turner, Daeqwon Plowden and Trey Diggs before the game.
The Falcons shot 25% from the three point line, 34% from the floor and 68% from the foul line. Diggs and Plowden led the team in points, both finishing with 19. Turner followed close behind, ending the game with 16 points.
BGSU was quick to take the lead, scoring four points within the first minute of the game.
However, BGSU was not able to hold the lead after Miami’s guard, Mekhi Lairy, took a drive down the middle of the Falcon’s defense, moving the score to be 8-7 and the RedHawks just kept on going.
When the score hit 14-7, Miami, the teams took their first timeout and that was the beginning of a great half for the Falcons.
Upon leaving the timeout, BGSU’s Dylan Swingle and Caleb Fields quickly added six points to the board but not before Miami had a few shots, making the score 20-14.
The Falcons pulled ahead of the RedHawks with a deep three off the left wing from Kaden Metheny and BGSU did not stop there.
The game went back and forth with BGSU leading but Miami was sticking with them. The Falcons pulled even further away after Diggs hit a three with 8:20 left on the clock.
Diggs was followed by Turner hitting a jumper from inside the key, Plowden sinking a couple of foul shots and a three from the right wing and Fields making a reverse layup off an assist from Plowden.
The score read 39-30 in favor of BGSU with three minutes left in the first half.
Sophomore Isaac Elsasser, BGHS graduate and BGSU walk-on, saw his first points of his career. Him and Plowden added four more points to the board, ending the first half 43-34 and consistently shutting down the RedHawks’ defense.
This tempo was quickly shut down by Miami when they came out into the second half pushing the ball and creating turnovers within the Bowling Green offense.
Seeing that the intensity had been lifted, BGSU soon shifted their defense to a full court press, causing turnovers and capitalizing on Miami’s mistakes.
The two teams held a tight battle as the lead was transferred between the two every other minute. Miami pulled ahead by five with 11 minutes left in the half, however, the game was far from over.
Two back to back threes from Diggs and Plowden got BG back into the game creating a one-point difference between the scores, 57-56, but still behind.
With five minutes left in the half BGSU and Miami switched between two or three point differences, but that all changed when Diggs hit a three off an assist from Turner to tie the game 72-72 with 45 seconds left in the half.
Plowden drew a foul on the defense and made both free throws allowing Bowling Green to finally take the lead 74-72. This lead was short-lived however, as Miami came back and scored a layup with 10 seconds left.
BGSU had the chance to win with four seconds left when Fields tipped the ball back into the hoop off a three by Diggs. The basket was first deemed good until officials took a closer look and saw that the game clock froze with 0.7 seconds left. As a result, the basket was waved off and the game headed to overtime.
“You just try to keep them [the players] focused as best you can. First, it was .2 on the clock and the basket was good then we are in overtime with five minutes left. I didn’t have time to argue, I had to get my team ready,” BGSU Head Coach Michael Huger said.
Throughout the overtime, both teams stayed close to one another, not allowing one to have the upper hand.
Unfortunately, with 4.6 seconds left on the clock, Miami had taken the lead ending the game 84-79.
“It’s a lot of frustration but things happen. There are alot of things we can’t control. I feel like this will light some fire under us. It will restart us and us worrying more about the little things again,” Plowden said.
Next up for the Falcons is their regular season finale with Ohio at home at 7 p.m. on Friday.
