The Falcon men’s basketball team righted the ship Wednesday against the Ohio Bobcats with a convincing 66-50 win. The Falcons now sit at 4-5 in MAC play.
The Falcons ended the first half up 41-19 and were commanding the game, but they took their foot off the Bobcats’ throat in the second half.
“We didn’t come out with the same defensive intensity (as in the second half),” Coach Michael Huger said. “You preach it over and over and over again, and you come out with that lack of intensity and let a team right back in. We have been doing that all year. It is fortunate for us that they did miss those shots, but we didn’t come back with the same intensity. As a team, you get up 21 points at half time, and now you are supposed to come back in the second half and try to get it to 30 and not relax and not do things that we do not normally do.”
Huger outlined some of his second-half criticisms after the game. “We should have gotten the ball inside more, and we have still got to execute and make layups,” he said. “We missed layups. Transition defense: we let them get going, and that was the difference in why they came back.”
Junior forward Demajeo Wiggins got back in form in this one, as he dropped 18 points to go along with 11 rebounds.
“I was very pleased with the way we played in the first half. We defended extremely well, played very hard. We rebounded well as a group. We were able to take away the three-point shooting of a very good three-point shooting team: second in the MAC in three-point shooting. I think they were 0-5 going into the half, so I was very pleased with the defensive effort and were able to get in transition and get some easy buckets in transition. Demajeo had a great first half for us.”
Another player who really stepped up his game was Antwon Lillard who had 13 points, eight rebounds, four steals and two assists.
“We wanted to do a great job of running them off the three-point line, which we did in the first half, and trying to limit those guys in transitions. Those were the two things that we had to try to limit. It’s hard to stop a team from doing that and trying to limit those actions from those guys.”
Next, the Falcons play at home Saturday against the Kent State Golden Flashes.
