Bowling Green State University Athletics
Bowling Green State University
AKRON
Falcons Beat Akron For Fifth Straight Win
February 24, 2000 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 24, 2000
Akron, Ohio -
The Bowling Green State University men's basketball team clinched a first round bye in the upcoming Mid-American Conference Tournament with a thrilling 73-72 win over Akron at the JAR Arena Thursday night.
Senior Anthony Stacey canned a 12-footer from left of the lane with 1.1 seconds left to send the Falcons home with a win for the fifth successive game. Stacey had 20 points in the game.
In a contest which featured 27 lead changes and nine ties, seven points was the largest lead of the game for either team.
The Falcons built the largest advantage in the first half of five points after a 6-0 run made it 19-14 at the 9:55 mark. Akron scored four of the last six points of the first half to take a 35-32 lead to the locker room. The first half featured 14 lead changes and seven ties.
Akron built the largest lead of the game at 39-32 scoring the first four points of the second half. The Falcons promptly went on a 10-2 run to take a 42-41 lead at the 14:21 mark on consecutive three-point field goals by leading scorer Keith McLeod and Brandon Pardon.
The Falcons eventually built a six-point bulge at 58-52 with 9:30 left on a three-pointer by Dave Esterkamp.
But, Akron came right back to score the next 10 points to take a 62-58 edge at the 5:19 mark.
A Stacey layup with 3:01 left put the Falcons ahead by one point at 67-66. One point would be the differential the rest of the way.
An Akron field goal at 1:17 put the Zips ahead by one point before Len Matela rebounded a Falcon miss and gave BG a one-point lead with 58 seconds left.
An Akron field goal was answered by a Stacey jumper with 29 seconds left. With 13 seconds left Jimmal Ball hit a jumper from the right elbow to set the stage for Stacey's late heroics.
Aftera time out by both team with 11.2 seconds left, a shot with 4.9 seconds left by Pardon was blocked out of bounds by Akron's George Phillips.
After a time out by BG, the Falcons inbounded the ball to Stacey on the left block and he took a couple dribbles and hit the winning fade away jumper. Akron did not get away a final desperation shot as BG batted their long inbounds pass away to secure the victory.
McLeod led the Falcons with 26 points, 16 of those in the first half, while Pardon was also in double figures with 12 points while adding seven assists. Dave Esterkamp grabbed 10 rebounds for the Falcons who shot 47.4% from the floor.
With the win, BG pulls even in the MAC East Division with Kent at 13-4 for the top spot in both the division and the conference. Kent plays at Ohio on Saturday afternoon while the Falcons battle Marshall on the road Saturday night in the regular season finale.
The Falcons will be either the #1 seed or the #3 seed in the MAC Tournament depending on the outcome of the games on Saturday. The top three seeds in the tournament earn byes for the first round of games on March 3.
