If there’s one thing Dan Dakich does know about his young team, it’s that they need to get better. The sixth-year head coach, whose team began their regular season Saturday with a 75-61 loss to Detroit-Mercy, addressed the media yesterday and addressed what his team needs to do to continually improve throughout the early part of the season.
“I really thought, as I was watching the game, that our team was surprised by the pace,” Dakich said. “As the game progressed, they rushed us. It was like we had five guys out there playing on the road against a tough team who were all in different spots that they’d never been before in their lives.
“I just felt that Detroit, for whatever reason was a more comfortable team,” Dakich said. “We made far too many individual defensive errors, where guys just got beat by their guys. We have to be better individually.”
When the team wasn’t getting beaten by Detroit, they were getting themselves in foul trouble, as BG garnered 33 fouls in the game, which severely limited the team in the second half.
There were positives from the first game of the season, in that the Falcons battled back against a very good team to put themselves in a good position in the second half. BG found themselves down by 18 just minutes into the second half, but clawed back into the game and found themselves down just six with six minutes to go.
“I think they’re reflective of what we’re going to see in our league,” Dakich said. “I think they were a good measuring stick for where we’re at relative to our league. … They had two guys in [Terrell] Riggs and [Willie] Green that have been through it before, and those two guys won the game for them.”
Dakich continued by saying he wants the team to develop a sense of mental toughness they need to be successful through the season.
“What I want to see [this week] is an increase in their individual pride in guarding and their individual in toughness mentally,” Dakich said. “This is an inexperienced team, there’s no two ways about it. You have to develop a mental toughness. There’s two things with us, and those are mental toughness and leadership, and I didn’t think we were good at either of those two things in the game.”
This weekend brings the Falcons’ home opener, against Division II Tiffin University. Tiffin has yet to play this season.
In other news for the team, Josh Almanson’s foot injury doesn’t seem to be getting better. Dakich said Almanson will have an MRI done this week, and will not practice this week and will likely not play against Tiffin. Almanson played on virtually one leg against Detroit, and painfully labored up and down the court against the Titans.
Transfer John Reimold led BG against Detroit by hitting three three pointers and scoring 14 points, while Cory Ryan had 12 and Almanson 10.
