It wasn’t a win, but it was an improvement.
The Bowling Green basketball team lost its opener Saturday to DePaul, 69-59 and BG head coach Dan Dakich didn’t feel entirely bad about the results.
“Even in defeat, this was ten times better than some of the wins we had last year in terms of effort,” he said.
The Falcons jumped all over the Blue Demons early in the game and looked poised to beat the same team that won Conference USA last season and advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournaments. The Falcons found themselves with a 25-22 lead at the half but were already starting to show early signs of what would be a second half letdown.
“We blew an opportunity,” Dakich said. “I thought by halftime we should’ve been up ten, twelve points.”
Those ten or twelve points would’ve helped the Falcons in the end as the beginning of the second half was a time DePaul would dominate. The Blue Demons used this time to take a 18-4 run and a 40-29 lead they would not relinquish throughout the rest of the game.
The Falcons fought back late in the game, but the run was too much for them to recover.
“Early in the half, we settled for way too many jump shots,” Dakich said. “Once we got running our offense and picking up the pace and getting the ball down the floor we could get whatever we wanted.”
The Blue Demons relied on a trio of players to get the job done for them. Guard Sammy Mejia led the way with 22 while fellow guard Drake Diener scored 14, all in the second half. Center Marlon Brumfield provided the muscle inside with 10 points and 15 boards.
The Falcons saw four starters score in double figures.
Josh Almanson and Steven Wright each contributed 17 points to lead the way, while John Reimold and Cory Eyink scored 11 and 10, respectively.
The problem for the Falcons was not their starters but their supporting cast.
“We’ve got to get more from our bench,” Dakich said. “We only had four points off the bench from [Germain] Fitch, got some looks from [John] Floyd and didn’t get anything else from our bench and we’ve got to do that.”
The Falcons have a few days to tweak their problems as their next game will be Wednesday night against Illinois-Chicago.
