Saturday's Exhibition Release

[ZiggyZoomba]

Falcons Face Adrian In Exhibition Saturday

Bowling Green, Ohio – The Bowling Green State University men’s basketball team gets the final season in Anderson Arena started Saturday as the Falcons host Adrian College at 2 p.m. in the team’s only exhibition game of the year. Admission and parking to the event is free for all fans.

PARKING/TRAFFIC NOTE: Due to construction, Ridge Street is closed between Mercer Road and Willard Drive. Fans heading to Anderson Arena from the south or east should take Mercer Road and turn left onto East Merry Avenue. Take Merry to the first stop sign and turn left onto Willard Drive, the street between the Health Center and Moore Musical Arts Center. Take Willard to Ridge Street, turn right and proceed to lot N/14.

Bowling Green was picked to finish fifth in the Mid-American Conference Eastern Division in the preseason poll but there is plenty of excitement surrounding the program. Junior Scott Thomas was a preseason All-MAC selection after averaging 13.2 points and 6.3 rebounds per game a year ago.

The Falcons have one of the most veteran backcourts in the country behind the leadership of senior Joe Jakubowski (85 career starts entering 2010-11) and junior guard Dee Brown (started 29 of 30 games a year ago). The question marks deal with the frontcourt as the Falcons graduated all three post players from a year ago in Marc Larson, Erik Marschall, and Otis Polk. This coaching staff, led by fourth-year head coach Louis Orr, reloaded inside with a group of talented and athletic big men.

Jakubowski is the lone returning senior on the 2010-11 team and he should thrive in an offense that is likely to try to run more and get up-and-down the court quicker than in recent history. Two other seniors, Mike Dabney and Wiley Roberts, will join the team as walk-ons for the first time this year. Dabney played one season at Concordia College in Ann Arbor, Mich. and Roberts was a team manager for BGSU for the past two seasons.

The returning juniors consist of Thomas, one of the most talented players in the conference, and Brown, a deadly shooter who ranks among the top 10 three-point shooters in program history. Junior college transfer Torian Oglesby is one of those new big men inside and he can change the game with his athleticism on the defensive end of the floor by blocking shots and rebounding.

Five sophomores return and this group has potential to make some of the biggest impact. A’uston Calhoun could be in the starting lineup in 2010-11 and he led the team in scoring during the team’s public intersquad scrimmage a week ago. Back-up point guard Jordon Crawford spent the offseason working as hard as anyone and his ability to change the tempo of the game both offensively and defensively can cause headaches for an opponent.

Findlay-native Luke Kraus is a high-energy scoring machine and he proved that with 16 points in just 18 minutes in Bowling Green’s final regular season game a year ago and the coaching staff entrusted him with his first career start in the team’s MAC Tournament opening round game. Danny McElroy will have an opportunity to flourish this year after having a year to learn how to play in the post from those three graduated seniors. He saw action in 22 games a year ago and will have every chance to establish himself as a key player in the team’s rotation. The final sophomore is James Erger, who played in 23 games a year ago off the bench and provides steady production when he gets on the floor.

Three highly-touted freshmen round out the roster. Anthony Henderson was a first team all-state player a year ago after averaging 27.7 points per game at Toledo’s Start High School. He was the City League Player of the Year and can provide instant offense for the Falcons. At 6-foot-10, Cameron Black has potential to start as the team’s center after dominating in high school to the tune of 16.4 points, 13.2 rebounds, and 6.0 blocks as a senior. Craig Sealey is an athletic wing player who will create match-up problems for a defense. He is quickly getting acclimated to the college game and will have a chance to find time in the regular rotation.

Adrian College went 15-12 a year ago but is a bit of an unknown as an NCAA Division III school with a first-year head coach. Mark White compiled a 201-42 record as a high school coach in a pair of Detroit schools. Senior guard Jovon Mosley led the team a year ago at 13.3 points and 5.5 rebounds while shooting 80 percent from the free-throw line. In all, Adrian returns just two of the six players who started at least 10 games a year ago.

Bowling Green’s regular season opens Nov. 12 at Howard at 7 p.m. and the Falcons will play their home opener on Nov. 15 against Ohio Dominican at 8 p.m. as the second game of an old-fashioned doubleheader. The season marks the final year in Anderson Arena before moving into the Stroh Center for the 2011-12 campaign

[ZiggyZoomba]

Just bumping this as a reminder... Basketball tomorrow in Anderson Arena!!! See you there!

[ZiggyZoomba]

Today's exhibition game video will be streamed live over the internet on the America One network:

http://www.b2livetv.com/partner_members.asp?id=283

[Class of 61]

From the article on bgsufalcons.com, it doesn't appear that they played very well...unless, of course, Adrian is a "sleeping giant". ONE guy in double figures...can't pull up the whole box score for some reason, so I can't see how many minutes each guy played, much less their totals. But, I'm a bit disappointed, exhibition game or no.

[Falcon137]

Anytime you trail a D3 school for much of a half and only score 51 it's not good. Loooong way to go.

[FMBfan07]

game might not of been the best game, but it was great to be back in anderson for basketball.. I love this time of the year!

[debtzoomba]

We will be fine...coach Orr was trying all kinds of different combinations. Calhoun is a beast and will score at least 12 per game by accident. He can score in so many different ways...dunks, turnaround jumpers, three pointers, etc. We were 1-15 from 3...otherwise would have been 25 point burial. The score is going to look close because Adrian couldn't score and the tempo was slower than we would like. Thomas was being very unselfish and only shot 6 times. We will be fine.

[ZiggyZoomba]

Yeah, this was more a glorified practice session than an actual game. Orr WAS trying all kinds of lineups, schemes, etc... JoeJak didn't play much the second half... Erger played sparingly... the W doesn't even count in our final W-L tally, so for those disappointed... knock it off!

As for Debt's Calhoun observation... gotta agree! There was a stretch when he hit two little soft turn-around jumpers in a row that just made me smile... he got UP for a few rebounds too. Kid's got some springs!!

I REALLY liked it when both Cam Black and the Apostrophe were on the floor at the same time. There were a couple occasions where those two guys cleared the whole lane out with their box-outs.

Yeah, it was DIII and the score wasn't impressive... but it was a game in Anderson Arena!! I won a T-shirt (with the help of Andersyn) and it was SOOOO NICE to be back!

[ZiggyZoomba]

Yeah, this was more a glorified practice session than an actual game.

No disrespect to Adrian with this statement either... they had some skills and were a LOT stronger than I expected a DIII school to be. AND they had their own "Apostrophe" in D'ante Thompson! There was so much punctuation on that floor... I almost felt like I was proofreading a paper!

[BleedOrange]

While I'm thrilled that our expectations for the Apostrophe have been confirmed, I think this quote from Orr is by far the most interesting item coming out of Adrian game.

"I thought we did a good job with ball pressure," Orr said. "We made a lineup change in the second half, and I think Luke [Kraus] is our best perimeter defender.

If Krauss becomes a significant contributor this year, we then have needed depth in our backcourt.

[BleedOrange]

Torian Oglesby wasn't in the box score.

What's up? Is he injured?

[debtzoomba]

No...he just didn't play. Interesting...

[Redwingtom]

Yeah, this was more a glorified practice session than an actual game.

No disrespect to Adrian with this statement either... they had some skills and were a LOT stronger than I expected a DIII school to be. AND they had their own "Apostrophe" in D'ante Thompson! There was so much punctuation on that floor... I almost felt like I was proofreading a paper!

Yeah, I was going to mention that Adrian is really pouring a lot of resources into their athletic programs...so I was wondering what type of talent they had.