Bowling Green State University Athletics
Bowling Green State University
BYU
Men's Basketball Falls To BYU, 81-54
March 15, 2000 | Men's Basketball
March 15, 2000
By TIM KORTE
AP Sports Writer
PROVO, Utah (AP) - If anything could be more disappointing for Bowling Green than missing the NCAA tournament, it was the way the Falcons played in the first round of the NIT.
Terrell Lyday scored 15 points, hitting 5-of-6 from 3-point range, and Michael Vranes added 14 points as BYU beat Bowling Green 81-54 Wednesday night.
The Cougars (21-10), making their first postseason appearance in five years, won for the fifth time in six games. BYU will play next week against the winner of Thursday's game between Colorado and Southern Illinois.
Bowling Green (22-8) came in as the nation's No. 3 shooting team (49.8 percent), but BYU held the Falcons to 32 percent (17-of-52) from the floor. They shot 34 percent (9-of-26) as BYU built a 38-28 halftime lead.
"We did not see the best of Bowling Green," Cougars coach Steve Cleveland said. "I have watched them enough on tape to know, and I can assure you they are a very good team."
The Falcons gathered Sunday when the NCAA bids were handed out, confident their regular-season title in the Mid-American Conference would give them reason to celebrate on national television.
Instead, they were one of those teams shown crumbled in their lounge chairs, moping and dour. They would have been more upset if they knew what was waiting in Provo.
"It was embarrassing," Falcons center Len Matela said. "Everything that could possibly go wrong did go wrong. We've played good defense and offense all year, and this was the complete opposite of that."
Dave Esterkamp led Bowling Green with 19 points.
Coach Dan Dakich wanted to see his team run after the Falcons were lulled into a halfcourt game by Miami, Ohio, during a first-round upset 10 days earlier at the MAC tournament.
But BYU showed it can play a 94-foot game, too. The Cougars averaged 70.4 points and, after the teams banged inside through the first half, BYU took control with a 10-3 run during the last 3:48 before the break.
"Defensively, I thought we were really solid," Cleveland said. "Because they were not very big, we were able to utilize a smaller lineup."
Lyday, despite a concussion suffered during an early tumble with Stacey, heated up early in the second half. Lyday connected three times from 3-point range in the first 5:30 as BYU stretched the lead to 51-39.
Lyday went to the bench midway through the second half.
"We made the decision not to put him back in," Cleveland said. "He's really hurting."
It was 55-40 with 11:33 left after an inside basket by Eric Nielsen, who scored 13. The Falcons gave up too many easy baskets and couldn't get much going offensively, either.
"That was not representative of how we played basketball all year," Dakich said. "BYU played hard. They played well. They were disciplined. As we watched BYU on tape, we could tell they would play hard on defense."
MAC player of the year Anthony Stacey, Bowling Green's leading scorer at 17 points a game, was held to three first-half points and finished with 11. The Falcons also had 17 turnovers.
It seemed nothing would go right for the Falcons. Vranes scored on a putback with 6:16 to play, giving the Cougars a 62-46 lead, after the ball went off the hands of three Bowling Green players.
Mekeli Wesley added 13 points for BYU.
