The comeback kids were at it once again on Tuesday night as the Falcon men’s basketball team took this one from the Western Michigan Broncos by a score of 83-81.
“Great game to be a part of, Western is a great opponent playing really well,” Falcons head coach Michael Huger said, “Wilder is a heck of a player, a lot of fun. My team is showing a lot of fight I would say. Hopefully, we will figure it out that we have to fight for two halves and not just one, but it’s always fun to come out on top of a game like this.”
The Falcons trailed by 11 at the half in this one only to quickly dwindle their deficit down to one in the second half. The Broncos would not give up the fight though as they battled back to a 10-point lead.
“You can call us what you want as long as we win. I wouldn’t say we are a second-half team, I just think that is when we are at our best it seems, in the second half. I want to be at our best from the start to finish and not just one half. We have been playing a bit of the first half and then the whole second half and that not going to cut it,” Huger said.
With four seconds left, the Falcons trailed by one when junior guard Antwon Lillard rose up for a three pointer only to be hacked on the arm. In this game the refereeing was very inconsistent, and it was unclear if Lillard would get the call at first, but he did.
The 6’5” guard made all three free throws, and the Falcons defended a last shot Hail Mary attempt from the Broncos to put this one in the win column.
This was a game in which Coach Huger showed more emotion than ever before as the inconsistency of the referees and both teams getting chippy made this game one to remember on both sides.
“I know it hurt me (giving so much emotion on the sideline) so I’m going to kind of lay back a little bit, but I think it helped. It helped the team; they understood where I was coming from. They respond to me and how I coach them, and they did a great job of responding to that,” he said. “It’s tough to do that for a whole game… I can keep it up for the second half, but we need that intensity. It should not need to be me brining that intensity to them. They should want to do that on their own, and they do it in the second half.”
The Falcons play next on Friday on the road about the Buffalo Bulls.
