Thoughts from the BG/OU MAC Tournament game

[BGSU33]

Well, just got back from the MAC Tournament. It was another long ride home after yet another disappointing season. It’s a shame for me it ended so quickly again because every year around the country you see upsets and teams come out of nowhere to win their tournaments, and every year, no matter how good or how bad we are, I have a reserve of hope that maybe, just maybe, this will be our year. Even though I knew this year would be extremely difficult for us to accomplish the feat, I thought hell, what better a year to finally pull it off and win this damn thing already. Oh well…..

First off, I’ve got to say from the start, we played a much better game this time around than we did the other two times this year vs. Ohio. I wasn’t at the game in Athens, but I was at the one in BG a few weeks ago, and we at least looked much more prepared and competitive this time around. We made a game of it, and I’m proud of the team for that. We didn’t play our best, and we would have needed to in order to win this game, but we played hard and we left it on the floor today. For that, I am grateful and proud of my team.

On the flip side, we just don’t have the horses to win a game against a team like Ohio this year. OU is just one of those teams that we don’t match up well with at all. We can hang with them in stretches, but not for 40 minutes. If you were to line up 10 more games against them this year, I’m not sure I could see us beating them. They just have so much balance and different weapons and have a very good inside/outside game. But today, the difference in the game IMO was Bubba Walthers. About five minutes into the second half in a one-possession game, Walthers hit three three-pointers in a span of a minute! No kidding. It just took the air right out of our sails. He hit back-to-back treys that got the OU crowd into it and then hit a three in Samarco’s face from beyond NBA-range that was the dagger. Watching our guys walk off the floor after we burning a timeout after that shooting exhibition by Walthers, you could see it affected our team and I felt that was ballgame. We tried to battle back, and did, but the damage was done right there. In that 40 minute game, that one minute of play just killed us and gave them the upper hand.

Our lack of production inside hurts us a lot too. Our trio of centers were simply no match against Tillman and Williams. Polk, Lefeld and Larson combined for 2 points, 1 rebound and 9 fouls. We had far superior size, but they killed us with quickness and athleticism and made us look like we were standing in cement as they combined for 24 points, 22 rebounds and 7 fouls. Our only post threat was Miller, and he’s the height of a guard. But the comparisons to Anthony Stacey are becoming more and more warranted the more he plays. If we could take Miller’s moves and ability and put them into Polk’s body, you’d have the premier big man in the MAC. Miller uses his body just like Stacey to feel a defender behind him and he does a great job of drawing fouls against much bigger players. We really missed Hamblet and Samarco’s strokes today though. Both guys had decent looks today, but couldn’t consistently knock down the big shots. Hamblet started off slow and picked it up late, where as Samarco started very hot and cooled way off and forced a few. We needed big games from these two, and they tried, but they just didn’t have one of their A-games today. And of course, not having Marschall able to play at all hurt us before we ever took the court, especially inside where we had no answers.

Lastly, and this is sounding like a broken record for us all season long, free throws and fouling hurt us big time again. Our opponents made more than 250 free throws than we even attempted for the season, and we fouled nearly 200 times more than our opponent did this year, and today it was no different. BG was 6-9 from the line (all by Miller) while OU shot 19-29, and we had 23 fouls to their 10. Yeah, we scrambled to foul late which gave them about six more trips to the line and a few more fouls against us, but despite being outplayed in other areas, it didn’t help out one bit that we gave up 13 more points at the line in a game we lost by 10.

All in all, this year ended about how many of us thought. I for one felt we wouldn’t finish last in the MAC and that we would move ahead of a few teams, but didn’t. While the MAC wasn’t as strong this year as in recent years, there are certainly some solid teams in the league this year, but we struggled against everyone. Teams in the MAC have just seemed to have figured out how to beat us and how to exploit us time and time again in recent years anymore. There used to always be a few teams we could chalk up as wins, especially when we played at home, but those days are no more for BG. We’ve in fact slipped into becoming one of those teams ourselves. Is there a way to fix things at BG? Yes, certainly. But what it’s going to take? Better players, a different coach, a different style of play, or how about all of the above? Who knows. The list and ideas goes on an on. I love this school and I love the teams and that will never change. But with all that said, it only makes it more difficult to swallow after another disappointing season. The one thing we know for is we can add yet another year to ever-growing list of years since we last went to the NCAA Tournament back in 1968 and use yet again the all-too familiar line associated with BG hoops….”Maybe Next Year.” I can only hope I’ll get to see it in my lifetime, but as we approach 40 years of waiting, it really does make you wonder if and when we’ll see it again. Thanks seniors and here’s hoping we keep guys around for next year and make some progress.

GO BG!!!

[hammb]

The lack of inside presence definitely hurt us today. Polk was not quick enough and fouled out way too quickly. Our other bigs were no match for Tillman/Williams either, and we just got destroyed on the boards.

The other story of the game, for me anyways, was another one of Samarco's games. I would've seriously contemplated pulling him with 4:00 or so to go in the game. He was hurting the team by jacking up quick 3s when we really just needed good possessions and points, not 3balls. It annoys the crap out of me to see Moten shoot 4-6 from the arc while Samarco shoots 3-12. Let the guys that are hot do the shooting.

Listening to this game today gave me flash backs of a few years back when Sammy Villegas shot UT right out of the MAC tourney. Just keep jacking them up while your team slowly dies.

[BleedOrange]

The lack of inside presence definitely hurt us today. Polk was not quick enough and fouled out way too quickly. Our other bigs were no match for Tillman/Williams either, and we just got destroyed on the boards.

The other story of the game, for me anyways, was another one of Samarco's games. I would've seriously contemplated pulling him with 4:00 or so to go in the game. He was hurting the team by jacking up quick 3s when we really just needed good possessions and points, not 3balls. It annoys the crap out of me to see Moten shoot 4-6 from the arc while Samarco shoots 3-12. Let the guys that are hot do the shooting.

Listening to this game today gave me flash backs of a few years back when Sammy Villegas shot UT right out of the MAC tourney. Just keep jacking them up while your team slowly dies.

Amen.

I'm expecting Moten will step in for Samarco next year and that we'll be a better team because of it.

Moten is longer, quicker and a decent leaper, so he'll finish interior shots that Samarco had blocked. However, I expect Moten not to get into so many of those situations to start with. Also, Moten has good lateral quicknesss and has been defending opposing PGs on the ball very well for a 6-4 guy.

Polk had 5 fouls in 9 minutes. He has performed similarly in many other games. Some of us have complained about him not seeing the floor enough. That is why.Is it just me, or does Polk look like he has bad balance? I see a lot of potential in that kid, but he seems to lack balance. Maybe it's his weight.

[orangeandbrown]

I think Hamblet will score for us, too

[Eagle66]

First of all let me say you guys played a heck of a game. After watching Bg play Miami I knew this one wasn't going to be easy.

Thats a very good re-cap of the game. I agree about the turning point being Bubba's threes. I was watching the game with a bunch of Kent and Ball st. fans, and they said the exact same thing. I think what spurred Bubba onw as actually hamblet. Moten hit that three to bring you guys within one. Hamblet then stole Bubba's pass and dunked it for the one point lead and he got in Bubbas face a little, nothing out of the ordinary given the situation, but it definetly fired Bubba up and he just went off.

Anyway, good game. Moten, Hamblet, and Miller are all solid players from what I saw. Throw in Polk and Marschall, and I think you guys will be back in the thick of things soon. good luck next year.

[BGSU33]

Thats a very good re-cap of the game. I agree about the turning point being Bubba's threes. I was watching the game with a bunch of Kent and Ball st. fans, and they said the exact same thing. I think what spurred Bubba onw as actually hamblet. Moten hit that three to bring you guys within one. Hamblet then stole Bubba's pass and dunked it for the one point lead and he got in Bubbas face a little, nothing out of the ordinary given the situation, but it definetly fired Bubba up and he just went off.

I completely agree and we all saw that too. When Hamblet stole that pass and went in for the dunk, he started barking at Walthers and it totally fired him up. It was like a switch was turned on and Walthers put on Reggie Miller-like shooting exhibition knocking down three long three-pointers in one minutes that essentially sealed the game. After he buried that 25-footer on Samarco, he then did some barking right back. But man, Walthers just has incredible range. No wonder Akron was so upset about losing him. I also saw the New Mexico State game on TV and he was hitting threes from beyond 25 feet out consistently and the TV announcers were just going crazy.

Congrats on the win and I’m sure you’ll get past Miami in the next game, you guys always seem to make a run in the MAC Tournament. It pains me to say it but Ohio just owned BG this year. I have family members that are OU grads and believe me, I hear about it any time OU beats BG.