Although BGSU men’s basketball is now 0-2 on the young season after falling 91-85 against Davidson in their home opener on Friday night, there have been many glimpses of a great team in their first 80 minutes of action on the hardwood, with their high-flying offense showcased in the second half of their loss to the Wildcats at the Stroh Center.
The Falcons got off to an extremely slow start, falling behind Davidson 19-6 just eight-and-a-half minutes into the contest. They would enter the locker room trailing by 16, 47-31.
“Obviously, horrendous start for us,” head coach Todd Simon said postgame.
However, things flipped 180 degrees in the second half.
In the first two minutes out of the locker room, senior forward Marcus Johnson hit two three-pointers, junior forward Youssef Khayat drained a triple and senior guard Trey Thomas made a fast-break layup as the Falcons went on an 11-2 run in the blink of an eye.
“We’ve got the ability to be very explosive,” Simon said. “When we can get into a break off a defensive rebound, we’re a dangerous team.”
The Orange and Brown nearly doubled their scoring in the first half, tallying 54 points in the second half, showcasing the explosive and fast-paced offense that Simon has talked about since he arrived in Bowling Green from Southern Utah.
“I mean, 54 points in a half is, you know, closer to what we want to be,” Simon said. “I think that we can be that team that we want to be with our quick strike and really making teams have to make decisions in the first five seconds of the shot clock.”
Overall, BGSU shot 46.7% (28-60) from the field and a blistering 46.5% (10-22) on three-pointers. The Falcons also made 76% (19-25) of their free throws in the contest.
One of the keys to unlocking the offense in the second half was tightening up the defense, which allowed Davidson to shoot 53.3% (16-30) from the field and 46.7% (7-15) on three-pointers in the first half.
“Kind of a slow, overthinking on the defensive end, which makes your feet not move, and Davidson made us pay for that,” Simon said. “They made those shots, and they did a great job running their stuff, and we didn’t do a great job handling it.”
However, Bowling Green held Davidson to just 41.9% (13-31) shooting from the field and 30% (3-10) from beyond the arc in the final 20 minutes.
“Obviously, as we regrouped and challenged guys and tried to make a few adjustments, make it a little simpler in terms of our aggression and getting a little more physical, I think they responded,” Simon said.”
After scoring 14 points in his first game at the Division I level, Johnson further showed why he is a mismatch and offensive weapon for the Falcons.
The 6-foot-7-inch, 265-pound forward caught fire in the second half, finishing the contest with 19 points and a team-high five three-pointers.
“Going into the second half, coaches and teammates told me, ‘Just keep shooting. Don’t hesitate off the pick-me-pop. I know a lot of teams are going to try to stunt and recover, but when the space is open, just shoot it,'” Johnson said. “That’s what I did, and I was just confident every ball that went up.”
While Johnson had another great performance for Bowling Green, the breakout star of the night was junior guard Javontae Campbell.
Campbell finished with a team-high 30 points, including 22 in the second half. The second-half performance marked the first time a Falcon scored 20 points in a half since Marcus Hill tallied 24 in BG’s Mid-American Conference (MAC) opener against Eastern Michigan last season.
Campbell was ultra-efficient, shooting 10-13 from the field and 10-12 from the charity stripe.
“He (Simon) got the most confidence in me. My teammates, they just tell me, ‘Keep going, keep going.’ They have more confidence than I have in myself sometimes,” Campbell said. “So, it’s like, if they got it, then it got to be there. So, I just kept going.”
The Muskogee, Oklahoma, native took over the game down the stretch, scoring 15 straight points for Bowling Green in the final five minutes of the contest.
“He’s under control, he’s very understated in his game, but there’s more to it than that. They’re hugging Trey Thomas, not trying to give up threes to him, who went 5-7 in the first game, that’s who he is. Marcus Johnson, obviously, catching fire; you can’t leave him. Youssef Khayat is an excellent three-point shooter and goes two for three, so you can’t really leave him,” Simon said. “So, you start having to pick your poison as a defensive team, and all of a sudden, that lane gets really wide open, and it was Javontae’s turn to take advantage.”
Outside of Johnson and Campbell, Khayat added a career-high 10 points on 3-5 shooting from the field in his first start for BG, while Thomas also tallied 10 points and a team-high three assists.
While there have been many glimpses of an elite offense, Bowling Green has yet to put it fully together through the first two games of the season.
“Since I got here, this team, we can score the ball. We just have to come out every night and start from the tip,” Johnson said. “Last two games, we started off slow, but we came back. So, we’re showing spurts, but we have to do that for the full 40 (minutes).”
Although Bowling Green is off to a 0-2 start for the first time since the 2016-17 campaign, Simon is not worried about the team’s slow start out of the gates.
“We’re starting to gel, we’re starting to find some rhythm with one another, and it’s going to be a process,” Simon said. “But we’re challenging ourselves with a more difficult schedule this year and two very difficult opening games this week. But it’s with the eyes on a bigger prize and being better from these games.”
