For the first 20 minutes of Saturday’s 84-67 exhibition win over Czech Republic Select at Anderson Arena, the Bowling Green basketball team remembered everything coach Dan Dakich told them in the locker room beforehand. Play defense inside and out. Make sharp passes. Get the perimeter game involved. Rebound at both ends.
For 20 minutes, they seldom missed a beat, scoring the game’s first 14 points and piling on to a 45-22 halftime lead.
Ah, but then there’s halftime. Dangerous ground for a young team with a big lead, a team that doesn’t yet know not to let its guard down. BG came out for the second half confident it had the game under control, and the Czechs promptly scored the first five points of the half.
“What we did in this game is what we do in practice,” Dakich said. “We play really well in practice for about an hour, and then our mind wanders and we slip.”
The second half was much more telling of a young team. Inconsistent play and turnovers peppered with flashes of athletic brilliance. While the passing game suffered after halftime, leading to 21 turnovers, freshmen Raheem Moss and Ronald Lewis gave a small taste of what the future might hold. Moss threw in a three-pointer as time expired in the first half, and then got a sparse crowd, announced at 509, on their feet in the second half with a dunk. Lewis, bringing the ball up the floor, penetrated to the basket well, and caught the Czechs napping in the second half when he turned on his afterburners and blew past everyone for an easy lay-up. Freshman walk-on Patrick Phillips got in on the act as well, canning a deep three-pointer late in the game, his only points.
The difference in the game was Cory Ryan, who finished with a game-high 27 points. Ryan, who was sometimes a loose cannon from beyond the three-point arc last year, showed newfound discipline, trying to help run the offense more than look for the open shot. The strategy worked against the Czechs.
Passing the ball away and then getting open, Ryan took shooting practice on the Czech defense, nailing 7-10 three-point attempts. His 21 points from beyond the arc were enough to buffer the Falcons against a serious Czech run.
“I’m just doing what Coach wants me to do,” Ryan said. “If it’s playing hard, if it’s shooting, if it’s defense, I’m just coming out to show [the younger players] and to set the tone [of the game].”
Germain Fitch was instrumental in buoying a sagging BG rebounding game late in the first half. Six of his 11 points came on put-backs off offensive boards. He led the game with 10 rebounds.
“I thought [Fitch] went to the offensive boards better than any kid we had here,” Dakich said. “We haven’t been a great offensive rebounding team, and I thought the offensive rebounds he got, quite frankly, were legitimate. They were the offensive rebounds you’re going to get in a game, in traffic, jumping above people.”
For the Czechs, Jan Sitar and Rah-Shun Roberts tied for the team lead with 14 points. Roberts also led the Czechs in rebounds with eight. The Czechs were dominated on the boards 42-27 overall, and could not find anyone to counter Ryan’s three-point onslaught. The Czechs finished just 5-for-22 from beyond the arc.
BG’s final home tune-up before the start of the regular season is Sunday against Shawnee State. Tip-off is scheduled for 1 p.m.
