CLEVELAND — Riding the momentum of a 90-81 win to open the Mid-American Conference
tournament Monday night in Muncie, the Bowling Green men’s basketball
team forgot about everything that had gone wrong this season last night
at Gund Arena.
The problem: They only forgot about the bad stuff for eight minutes.
The Falcons jumped out to an early 10-point lead on no.1 seed Central
Michigan, but ran out of manpower and firepower in an 87-70 loss to the
Chippewas. The Falcons, who finish their season at 13-16, were plagued
once again by foul trouble to their thin front line, as both Cory Eyink
and Kevin Netter were saddled with fouls throughout the game.
BG couldn’t have asked for a better start against the 21-6 Chips, who
won the teams’ only meeting of the year, 88-71 in Mount Pleasant on Feb.
1. After BG committed four turnovers in the first two minutes, John
Reimold helped get his team on track by hitting four threes early, and
after Ron Lewis scored with 12:40 left in the half, BG led 24-14.
“I got those looks in transition,” Reimold said after the game. “We
were passing the ball around the perimeter, and I was able to get good
looks.”
BG held Chris Kaman, the conference’s overall and defensive player of
the year who entered the game averaging 22.5 points and 12.2 rebounds
per game, scoreless over the first 11 minutes, but after Lewis’ lay-up,
the Chips went on a 13-2 run over the next five minutes. The run was
punctuated by a Kaman offensive rebound and put-back with 7:45 left in
the half, and the favorites had BG on the ropes.
After Netter and Eyink, the Falcons’ only remaining players over 6-8,
each picked up their third fouls with under three minutes left in the
half, Kaman went to work again, as his dunk with 51 seconds left in the
half gave CMU its biggest lead of the half at 37-21. A Cory Ryan free
throw cut BG’s deficit to five at the half.
After Lewis hit two free throws to open the second half, CMU went on an
18-3 run over the next four minutes to blow the game open. Both Netter
and Eyink picked up their fourth fouls during the stretch, and Ryan was
whistled for a technical as well.
“I thought we had a good chance to come out in the second half and get
it even,” BG coach Dan Dakich said. “We got a couple stops there, but we
missed some lay-ups, which you’ll do when you have a guy like Kaman in
there waiting for you. We had some turnovers there to start the second
half. … That’s just a good basketball team.”
The Falcons managed to hang around for much of the rest of the half,
and had the lead at 12 on numerous occasions, the latest of which was a
76-64 deficit after a Lewis bucket with just over four minutes
remaining. After the ensuing media timeout, though, Central scored nine
straight to put the game away.
Lewis led the Falcons once again with 30, scoring over 25 for the third
time in the team’s final six games. Lewis averaged 21.5 over that
stretch. Reimold scored 20, while Cory Ryan led the Falcons with seven
boards. BG finished with 19 turnovers, and Dakich said the ball pressure
the Chippewas were able to apply was a big factor in the game’s
outcome.
“Their quickness at guard is really tough to handle,” he said. “The
pressure they put on you is really tough; it’s constant pressure from a
lot of guys on your guards, and that’s tough to handle.”
Kaman led the Chips with 25 points, 14 rebounds and six blocks. J.R.
Wallace had 19, while Mike Manciel scored 15 and Tony Bowne 12.
Dakich said he was proud of the way his team battled throughout the
season with the circumstances they were facing.
“I can’t be more proud of our team,” he said. “I get a kick out of
watching this team go into Ball State and winning, and playing three
games in five days [to finish the regular season], and no one complains,
they’re just fighting all the way. I’ll never be proud of 13-16, but I
am proud of the way these guys fought.”
