BG blows late lead, loses to Northern Colorado in OT

BGSU33 · Post by **BGSU33** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 11:08 pm

BG looked in good shape as the Falcons were up 48-40 with a few minutes to play and kept the lead at eight at 53-45, but BG couldn’t hold on. BG was hanging onto a 53-50 lead with 1:30 to go before UNC tied it up at 53-53 all by scoring eight unanswered points to send the game into OT. Momentum swung the home team’s way. We were only down by two when Hamblet cut it to one but missed the back end of two free throws, and still down by one, we could have tied or taken the lead but Miller missed the front end of a one-and-one and that ended up being the ballgame. We cut it to three late but UNC hit its key free throws. We ended up losing 64-60 and we fall to 4-4 with the loss. We really let a chance at a win slip out of our hands tonight in this one. That’ll make a long trip home for the Falcons.

Falconfreak90 · Post by **Falconfreak90** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 11:19 pm

Man....what a tough way to go. Hopefully we'll regroup and get a W next time out.

bgnewser · Post by **bgnewser** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 11:24 pm

anyone have a box score of this game yet?

Falcon137 · Post by **Falcon137** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 11:35 pm

Tough one, gota bounce back though no time for pitty parties.

h2oville rocket · Post by **h2oville rocket** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 11:48 pm

Tough road loss but I understand this one can be placed squarely on the shoulders of your coach. As I heard it, near the end of the game NC was inbounding the ball and Orr screamed at Hamblet "Who are you guarding?" And by the time Hamblet said "Thanasi Panagiotakopoulos" Panagiotakopolous had scored the decisive points. I may have it wrong but that's what I heard.

At least you can say "Hey, we played UNC on the road and took 'em to OT".

BGSU33 · Post by **BGSU33** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 12:11 am

We've dropped three out of our last four games now and tonight we had some rough outings by a few guys. Polk played 16 minutes and was scoreless before fouling out....again! Seriously, what is it going to take for this kid to stay out of foul trouble and stay on the floor??? Knight was stone-cold shooting going 0-5 from the field with only 5 points (he did have 10 boards though) before fouling out. Miller had a decent game but was only 1-5 from the line including a very costly miss on the front end of a one-and-one in overtime. Hamblet led the way with 23 points before fouling out. Very little production from the bench as well. Chalk this one up as a missed opportunity. Worst part is, we have to sit on this tough loss for a week and a half until our next game. At least it wasn't a MAC game...although, the conference slate looms ahead of us in a couple weeks and we've got a lot of work ahead of us to be in the thick of things.

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/boxscore?gid=200712060425

Warthog · Post by **Warthog** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 2:44 am

Just got back from a business trip out to California, so all I know about the game is the box score. Here is what stands out to me: 9 assists, 24 turnovers. That is quite simply pathetic. No way you should expect to win when you turn it over 24 times.

JimmyZ11381 · Post by **JimmyZ11381** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 8:23 am

This team is a work in progress and needs to figure out how to finish games strong. I wasn't expecting this team to be a contender overnight and it's obvious at this point that we are not. I am however optimistic that we will see this team improve throughout the year as they adjust to playing this uptempo style of basketball.

I'm disappointed because this would've been a nice road win that we let slip through our fingers.

hammb · Post by **hammb** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 9:51 am

Warthog wrote:Just got back from a business trip out to California, so all I know about the game is the box score. Here is what stands out to me: 9 assists, 24 turnovers. That is quite simply pathetic. No way you should expect to win when you turn it over 24 times.

That pretty much sums it up. Same problem as the Oakland game. The first 4-5 games of the season we were doing much better than last year in the turnover department. The past 2 have successfully brought our turnover numbers back around last year's average. That's BAD.

I had the game last night on the radio and I could barely stomach listening to it. It was so choppy, and just ugly, disgusting basketball the way it sounded on the radio. We just couldn't do anything without turning the ball over.

You want to know how this game finished? In regulation it's tied up with something like 27 seconds left. We're out of a timeout with the ball. The guys start to set up the offense and Jakubowski stepped over center court and turned it right back over. Thankfully UNC missed a 3 pointer on their possession so we went to OT, but that pretty much sums up the game as far as I could see. We need to get back to that 10-12 turnovers a game that we were early on if we're going to get back to winning. The team is not talented enough to overcome that many turnovers.

BGSU33 · Post by **BGSU33** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 10:15 am

It’s disappointing to me that we lost this game because we just couldn’t close it out. We built our largest lead of the game (8 points) with 3:44 to go but we couldn’t make it stand and we let it slip away. If we score just a single point in the final 3:44, we win this game. It was a back-and-forth game pretty much most of the way, but from around the next-to-last media timeout to the final media timeout we actually put ourselves in the best position for the entire game by building our largest lead, only to have it slip away. The same thing happened in the end of the first half where we had a six point lead with 1:30 and went into the half up one. I guess all we can do is chalk this one up as one of those types of games that we can hopefully learn from.

What’s weird is, the article from the Blade (link below) prior to this game touched on the exact type of things that cost us in this game (closing out contests, keeping guys like Polk out of foul trouble, Miller needing to knock down his shots – though he was talking about three’s in the article but tonight last night it was free throws, etc.).

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dl ... /-1/SPORTS

hammb · Post by **hammb** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 10:41 am

Nate's jump shot is FUGLY. He's going to have to shoot some to keep guys honest, but I really don't like to see him taking jump shots too often. I certainly don't want him shooting many three balls.

In fact there really isn't anybody that gets consistent minutes on this team that I really want shooting the three. That's a problem. I'm a big fan of attack the basket and score inside...I don't like shooting threes constantly. I do, however, think you need at least one outside threat on the floor to keep a defense honest. If we had a bona fide shooter I think it would help Knight & Miller immensely on the inside. Hopefully one of the incoming recruits is a shooter. Joe Jak has a nice looking shot, and is shooting a respectable 44% from downtown this year. We really need that to be a consistent threat for our offense to work. As it is our penetration themed offense is bogging down because teams are sitting back begging us to shoot over them...unfortunately we cannot do it.

I'm hopeful Jakubowski develops in this regard as well, because Clements & Hamblet are NOT PGs! I've called Hamblet the human turnover for the past 2 seasons, but honestly Clements is worse; at least Ryne gets some assists for his turnover efforts.

Through the early going Jakubowsk was doing a good job protecting the ball...last two games have been rough on him. He's still a true freshman though, hopefully he bounces back. If this team is to win in the MAC we REALLY need him to develop into a PG who can hit the jumper and also help his teammates get good looks.

BleedOrange · Post by **BleedOrange** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 12:49 pm

Thomas and Calhoun are both said to be very good shooters. Brown is probably a decent shooter as well.

h2oville rocket · Post by **h2oville rocket** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 1:00 pm

Did Jakubowski guard Panagiotakapoulos? I couldn't imagine being the broadcaster who had to spit that out. Twenty seven letters worth of last names.

Flipper · Post by **Flipper** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 2:09 pm

BleedOrange wrote:Thomas and Calhoun are both said to be very good shooters. Brown is probably a decent shooter as well.

Per Mick McCabe in the Detroit Free Press, Brown is a very good shooter...in fact Mick tabbed him as the 14th best player in Michigan (regardless of school calssification or grade) in today's paper

JoeFalcon · Post by **JoeFalcon** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 7:09 pm

h2oville rocket wrote:And by the time Hamblet said "Thanasi Panagiotakopoulos" Panagiotakopolous had scored the decisive points.

I heard this fellow signed with Ohio University but left after a misunderstanding about its location.