The Bowling Green men’s basketball team, coming off two tough consecutive conference losses, hosted Ohio last night at Anderson Arena.
Ohio came into last night’s game in the middle of their longest winning streak of the season and were looking to make it five straight wins against conference opponents. The game also marked the second time these two teams have met in nine days, when Ohio defeated the Falcons 72-69 in Athens.
Early on, it looked like the Falcons may let another conference game slip away, shooting 42 percent and only scoring 26 points in the first half. Despite the slow and rough start for the Falcons offense, the defense managed to keep the Falcons in the game by only giving up 10 field goals and 28 points to the Bobcats in the first half of the game.
“We told our team at every timeout, stay with the defense and the offense will come,” said Falcon coach Dan Dakich. “It’s normally what happens in a motion offense and sure enough we found some offense in the second half.”
Dakich and the Falcons certainly did find their offense in the second half and quickly broke away from the Bobcats early on in the half. The combination of the great shooting and relentless defense had the Falcons off to a 9-0 run in the opening minutes of the second half.
The three Falcon shooters, John Reimold, John Floyd and Josh Almanson, had the Falcons ahead 41-33 with 16 minutes left in the game and in the middle of 15-5 run that proved to be too much for their opponents to overcome, and defeated the Bobcats 78-63.
“We felt we came out in the first half and played pretty good defense,”Almanson said. “Our offense wasn’t getting as many open looks as we thought and we just talked about at halftime staying with the defense and our offense was going to come if we keep working it,”
Almanson was a perfect 7-7 from the field, 2-2 from beyond the arc, and finished the game with 16 points and four rebounds. Reimold and Floyd also did their best to contribute to the team and finished with 16 points a piece in the winning effort.
However, the Falcons’ 52-point offensive surge in the second half was matched by their stifling defense.
The great defensive effort put forth all game by the Falcons was highlighted by the play of freshmen Scott Vandermeer.
Vandermeer, starting in the first game of his career, had a record setting seven blocks against the Bobcats and also chipped in with six points and six rebounds.
“I’m proud of our kids. I thought we handled the ball well in the second half, we got the shots that we wanted and stood up and drilled them,” Dakich said. “I thought the key was the start of the second half and obviously the defense as well. We didn’t give up much, and we didn’t give up very many easy looks, and I thought we handled the backboard pretty well. Once again, I like the fight in our team and we continue to move on.”
