Monday afternoon the Bowling Green men’s basketball team received word that Richaun Holmes was awarded first team All-MAC honors.
Later that night the Falcons took the floor for the first round of the Mid-American Conference tournament, but Holmes did not play. Despite warming up head coach Chris Jans and his staff knew all along he wasn’t going to play.
“We knew going into warmups that he wasn’t going to play, that he was just going to go through warmups,” Jans said. “He wanted to be with his team and dress out.”
Holmes suffered a head injury in the Falcons previous loss to Buffalo, but despite losing their All-MAC honoree the Falcons pulled out an 88-75 win against 12 seed Ball State.
“I was basically trying to build their confidence and saying, ‘Hey we can do this. We already did it on the road in a big time high level game. There is no reason we can’t do it at home against Ball State,” Jans said on preparing his team mentally.
The Falcons confidence should now be as high as ever, offensively at least, as they scored a season-high 88 points without Holmes in the lineup.
“We are playing as well offensively as we have been all year long,” Jans said. “I don’t know if we are playing our best in other areas, but we are offensively. If you look at the numbers we have put up in our last three games, we are shooting at a high level, sharing the ball, having low turnover games and I just like the way they are playing together.”
Seniors Anthony Henderson and Jehvon Clarke combined for 39 points. Henderson finished with a team-high 20 points and Clarke, tallied 19 points while going 6-6 from the free throw line.
Their confidence seemed to spill over into what seemed like a dreamlike first half for the team offensively. They shot 58 percent from the field, 60 percent from behind the arc and 90 percent from the free throw line.
That offensive explosion led to a season-high 50 points at halftime and a 16-point lead.
“Certainly that first half, I couldn’t have asked for anything more,” Jans said. “We played with an urgency, we played offensively like any coach would want their team to play.”
The second half however wasn’t as dreamlike for the Falcons as the Cardinals just didn’t give up. They scored on their first seven offensive possessions and cut the Falcons lead to ten with 14:40 to go in the game.
The Falcons weathered that run, but couldn’t buy a basket for four minutes.
While they went cold the Cardinals went on another run cutting the lead to three points with nine minutes to go in the game.
“A lot of teams make that run, but I feel like when they do make that run it’s important for us to not let them make an even bigger run more than that,” Henderson said.
That is easier said than done as the Falcons previous two games slipped away from them in the second half.
This time though they would put together an 11-2 run of their own pushing their lead back up to 11.
Ball State freshman Sean Sellers answered that run with a three to cut the lead back to single digits, but Zack Denny, who finished with 16 points, answered with a three of his own. The Falcons lead 74-63 and never looked back.
The biggest difference in that run was getting stops Henderson said. “We struggled for a minute stopping Ball State. We just had to keep grinding and keep forcing them to take tough shots and eventually they missed shots.”
This win gives the Falcons their 20th win of the season, the most since the 2002 season, but more importantly it advances them to the second round of the MAC Tournament.
They will be playing at Quicken Loans Arena Wednesday at 6:30 against Eastern Michigan.
“I’m happy right now, but then again I’m ready to get a ring,” Henderson said. “It’s all good to get to Cleveland, but at the same time that’s not the main goal. The main goal is to get to the NCAA Tournament.”