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Bowling Green State University Athletics
Bowling Green State University
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WESTERN MICHIGAN
Falcons Fall To Western Michigan
January 12, 2000 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 12, 2000
Kalamazoo, Mich. -
For the second straight game, the Bowling Green State University men's basketball team flirted with disaster by giving up a big second half lead. But this time they came up on the short end of the stick.
In their win Saturday over Buffalo, BG led by as much as 28 points in the second half before the Bulls closed the gap to as little as four points in the last minute before late free throw shooting by the Falcons helped them secure a 96-90 victory.
In the game at Western Michigan on Wednesday night, the Falcons built a 40-25 lead at halftime on the strength of 69.2% (18-of-26) shooting from the floor. They increased that advantage to 20 points scoring the first five points of the second half.
From there, the Broncos took over.
Western Michigan scored the next 11 points to cut the deficit to nine points at 45-36 at the 15:54 mark. After the Falcons built the lead back up to 13 points with 13:43 left, WMU scored 11 straight points to close the gap to 51-49 at the 11:25 mark.
BG then scored the next three points on a basket and foul shot by Len Matela. But, WMU would go on a 10-1 run to take their first lead (59-55 at the 8:40 mark) since the very early minutes of the game.
The Falcons would tie the game at 61 with 7:15 left after layups by Dave Esterkamp and Brandon Pardon.
But, WMU would ride the momentum of their home crowd and run off 13 of the next 16 points to take a 74-64 lead at the 3:28 mark. Eight points would be as close as BG would come the rest of the way.
WMU turned the tables on the Falcons shooting 74.1% (20-of-27) from the floor in the second half, 77.8% (7-of-9) from three-point range, and 79.2% (19-of-24) from the charity stripe.
Anthony Stacey led the Falcons with 22 points and 10 rebounds as Bowling Green had five players score in double figures.
WMU had three players score 20 or more points with 21 points from Rod Brown tops on the team.
The loss broke a five-game winning streak from the Falcons and was their first loss in MAC play in four tries.
