If the men’s basketball team has learned one thing throughout the course of this season, it is that no win comes easy.
The Falcons held off visiting Ball State, who cut a 13-point second-half deficit to as low as one, but BG managed to hang on for a 70-69 victory, putting them alone atop the Mid-American Conference West Division.
With the Falcons (15-7, 9-5 MAC) leading 67-66 with 11 seconds remaining in the game, Ball State’s Anthony Kent missed both his free throw attempts. After the second shot rimmed out, Terrance Chapman’s put back was blocked by Steven Wright, who saved the ball from going out of bounds, and threw it off Chapman to give BG possession.
“Wright made a great play throwing (the ball) off Chapman’s leg,” said senior John Reimold. “It was a really heads-up play and it won the game for us.”
“It was an unbelievable effort by (Ball State) and by us, and we just happened to get a ball bounce our way,” said Falcons coach Dan Dakich.
Reimold was then intentionally fouled by Peyton Stovall when he broke away off the inbound pass, and he hit both his free throws to give the Falcons a three-point advantage. He was fouled immediately on BG’s next possession, splitting his free throws to seal the win with four seconds remaining and the Falcons three-game losing streak to the Cardinals.
Reimold and Josh Almanson provided over half of BG’s points in the game. Reimold scored a game-high 28 points, pouring in 14 in each half. Almanson added 20 points, with a career-high four three’s and team-high seven rebounds.
“My two guys, Reimold and Almanson, I thought did a hell of a job,” Dakich said. “Reimold really came to play as he does every night.”
Dennis Trammell scored 21 points on seven of seven shooting, including three of three from beyond the arc, to pace the Cardinals (12-10, 7-7 MAC), who shot 53 percent from the field as a team. Stovall, who came in as BSU’s leading scorer, could not find his shot and finished with 11 points on five of 14 shooting.
BG’s bench, which has been suspect at times this season, played solid as a whole. They outscored the Cardinals bench 16-15 and played tough defense down the stretch. Perrick Robinson scored six points and had three steals in 20 minutes off the bench.
The Falcons committed a season-low 10 turnovers, with just four coming in the second half.
BG now gets a break from the hectic MAC schedule as they host Arkansas-Little Rock at 1 p.m. Saturday as part of the ESPN Bracket Buster games.
Well Done: During half-time, Falcon student-athletes, who have succeeded in the classroom, were honored in front of the home crowd. There were 206 student-athletes earned a term grade point average of 3.0 or higher.
