Ball State senior Chris Williams played like one of the premier perimeter players in the nation last night at Anderson Arena. Luckily for the Bowling Green men’s basketball team, Williams did so for only one half.

The Falcons’ tenacious first-half defense held Williams to three points in the opening stanza, and BG held off a second-half surge by the Cardinals to win their fifth straight game, 61-57.

BG moves to 3-0 in Mid-American Conference play, retaining their hold on first place in the conference’s West Division.

BG coach Dan Dakich used a steady dose of point guard Jabari Mattox, off guard Ron Lewis and reserve Keon Newson to harass Williams and his backcourt mates throughout the first half.

I’m sure they saw the game against Akron where he scored 48 points, and I knew they were going to try to limit his touches,” Cardinal head coach Tim Buckley said. “They did a great job of that.” Dakich commended his guards on their defense on the hot-shooting Williams.

Chris Williams is an exceptionally good player,” Dakich said. “I thought Jabari Mattox played about as well on a kid as I’ve seen him play. We couldn’t allow Rob Owens and [Mark] Farris to get 30 points, and Owens got 10 tonight. When they have been good, McCollom has done a lot of good things. So the perimeter was huge in our minds, but it wasn’t just Williams, but also the other guys too.”

Both teams shot poorly from the field in the first half, and the resulting play was sloppy and sluggish. Kevin Netter opened the game with five straight points, but the lead didn’t reach higher than five until a Josh Almanson three-point play with seven minutes to go in the half, which made the score 16-10.

Buckets by Ron Lewis, Almanson and Cory Eyink in the next five minutes opened the lead to 25-14, the Falcons’ biggest of the game. Ball State’s Cameron Echols hit one of two free throws, and after Almanson scored another basket, BSU’s Mark Farris dunked over Eyink and Kevin Cates hit one of two free throws for a BG 27-18 halftime advantage. Buckley said his team’s defense was improved, but not to where it needed to be.

“We didn’t play well in key stretches,” Buckley said. “In key situations, we let them get the ball inside too easily, whether it was by the drive or post entry. ‘#8721; They did a good job of trying to disrupt our rhythm and take us out of what we were trying to do.”

Williams, who had scored a school-record 48 points in Saturday’s overtime loss to Akron, shot just four times in the half and turned the ball over four times.

We knew they were a driving team, and had a couple shooters,” Netter said. Echols, McCollom and Williams are their shooters, so we came out figuring that if we could shut them down and force other guys to score, we could do well.

The opening of the second half, which had been Bowling Green’s Achilles’ heel thus far this season proved no different last night, as Ball State scored 14 of the second stanza’s 16 points and lead by three, 32-29. Williams scored 10 points in the first nine minutes of the half, and his tenth point gave Ball State their biggest lead of the game at 36-31.

Netter scored and was fouled three minutes later to pull the Falcons even, and they took the lead for good with five minutes to go at 47-45. John Reimold then hit an open three from the left wing to put the Falcons up by five, and they extended the lead to nine on two Lewis free throws with 1:26 to go.

Buckley was blunt in his analysis of his team’s inability to put the ball in the basket.

I think it’s [Anderson Arena] a great place to shoot,” he said. We missed shots. We got good shots. They played good defense; they always play good defense here.

BG was led by Netter again, who scored 17, while Lewis was 10-12 from the foul line and scored 14 points. Williams scored 23 in the second half, and Robert Owens scored 10 for the Cardinals, who lost their fifth straight and fell to 0-2 in the MAC.

Netter said the team is excited about their start, and is trying to prove doubters wrong.

Most people picked us like last in our league, and that’s an insult to us,” Netter said. “We took that as, ŒAlright fellas, this is what have to do.’ We’re going to have to go out there and show these people what we can do.