Bowling Green State University
BUFFALO
Falcons Rally From 13 Down For 63-62 Win At Buffalo
February 26, 2000 | Women's Basketball
Feb. 25, 2000
BUFFALO, N.Y. - Francine Miller's free throws with just 4.9 seconds remaining lifted the Bowling Green women's basketball team to a 63-62 road win over Buffalo Friday night (Feb. 25). The win, BGSU's fourth in a row, was televised by Fox Sports Ohio.
The Falcons (10-16 overall, 8-8 Mid-American Conference) clinched a homecourt berth for the first round of the MAC Tournament. BGSU finished the season in a three-way tie for fifth place overall, and enters the tourney as the seventh seed. The Brown and Orange will host 10th-seeded Ohio at venerable Anderson Arena Monday (Feb. 28). Tipoff is scheduled for 7:00 p.m.
Miller's free throws gave her a team-high 22 points on the night, including 16 in the second half. The Falcons rallied from a 13-point second-half deficit for the win.
The first 15 minutes of the game saw three ties and five lead changes, and a Dana Western three-pointer gave BG its largest advantage of the night, 24-19. A Miller jumper gave the visitors a 26-23 edge at the 3:50 mark before the Bulls (17-10, 7-9), led by Tiffany Bell, asserted themselves.
Bell scored the final 10 points of the half, and her teammates made the first three buckets of the second stanza. At that point, UB's lead was 39-26, the largest of the game, before an Angie Farmer layup at the 18:10 mark stopped the bleeding.
UB still led by 11 points when a Jaymee Wappes three-pointer, one of her four on the night, sparked a Falcon run. Wappes joined Miller in double digits with 14 points on the night.
A Miller trey completed a 7-0 BG run and cut the UB lead to 41-37 with 14:44 left. A Wappes layup a minute-and-a-half later cut the deficit to two points. The UB lead fluctuated between two and four points for the next five minutes.
Bell, who scored over half her team's points in the game, hit two free throws with 7:35 remaining, giving the hosts a 54-48 edge. But, the Falcons scored the next eight points. Sherry Kahle, who missed her first eight shots of the game, sandwiched a pair of three-pointers around two Afra Smith free throws, giving BG a 56-54 lead at the 5:49 mark.
A three-point play by Bell gave the Bulls a one-point lead, but Miller returned the favor with a conventional three-point play of her own with 3:33 left.
Mari McClure's jumper tied the game at the 3:12 mark, and another Bell three-point play gave UB a 62-59 lead with 1:49 left. Bell went 11-of-16 from the floor and hit all 11 of her free-throw attempts in the game.
Miller, who had picked up her fourth foul with 8:54 left, and spent the next several minutes on the bench, cut the Buffalo lead to 62-61 with a jumper with just 54.5 seconds remaining. On the ensuing possession, a bad UB pass resulted in a Kahle steal with 36 seconds left.
On BG's next possession, Miller's layup was waved off, as she was called for travelling with just 12.6 ticks on the clock. BG immediately fouled UB's Sonia Ortega, and Ortega missed the front end of a one-and-one situation with 10.9 seconds left.
Smith rebounded the miss and quickly got the ball to Wappes. The senior co-captain raced down the right side of the court and found Miller under the UB basket. Kim Kilpela was forced to commit a foul with 4.9 seconds left.
After Miller's free throws, UB inbounded the ball, needing to go the length of the court. McClure did just that, and got a good look at the basket. But, her layup attempt hit the left side of the rim and fell away.
Bell had 33 of the Bulls' 62 points, and McClure added 15. McClure had five assists and four steals. Ortega had six points, seven rebounds and seven assists, and Kilpela had a game-high eight boards.
For the Falcons, Smith scored eight points and blocked two shots, while Kahle had six points and team bests of seven boards and six assists. Western came off the bench to score six points and grab five rebounds.
BG was just 11-of-35 (.314) from the floor in the first half, and shot .365 for the game. UB, after shooting at a .519 success rate before halftime, shot .440 in the second stanza and .481 for the game. The Bulls, however, committed 20 turnovers to BG's 14.
The Falcons made nine three-pointers in 29 attempts, raising the team's season total to 241 treys made, a new MAC record. The old mark of 234 was held by the 1993-94 Kent (28 games) and Toledo (32 games) squads.
BG's seasonal average now stands at 9.27 successful triples per game. Currently, the NCAA single-season record is 9.19, held by the 1993-94 South Carolina team.
The Falcons' current four-game win streak is the longest since Jan. 20-30, 1999. BG had not won back-to-back road games since a four-game streak two years ago.
The winner of Monday's BGSU-OU game will advance to Cleveland's Public Hall to take on second-seeded Western Michigan Thursday (March 2). That MAC tourney quarterfinal game is scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m.
