Bowling Green State University Athletics
Coach Won't Let Falcons Quit
January 12, 2003 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 12, 2003
Kent, Ohio - Dan Dakich is the guy with the most overworked strands of hair this side of Gene Keady's comb-over at Purdue. He jokes about his hair.
He's the guy who played for and coached with Bobby Knight at Indiana, where the training table was always stocked with fire and brimstone.
He's the guy who reversed his sport coat a couple of seasons ago, emblematic of the hoped-for turnaround in his team's fortunes. He would stalk out on the floor looking like a man in a straitjacket who had just been retrieved from the cuckoo's nest.
Dakich is also the guy who was out of the Mid-American Conference for about 15 minutes, taking the West Virginia job in the prestigious Big East Conference, then leaving because he feared the probation wolf was at the door because of misdeeds of the previous administration. Dakich is back at Bowling Green State University now.
And his career U-turn provides the creative needlers in opposing arenas the chance to try out some lines. "You're a quitter, Dakich!" a Kent State fan shouted earlier in the second half as host Kent State opened a 24-point lead on the Falcons.
OK. Next insult. And let's try to draw some satiric irony this time. BG outscored Kent State, 45-17, after sportingly spotting the Golden Flashes a 24-point second-half lead and stunned the defending MAC champions, 78-74, yesterday.
"This is the top moment for me, absolutely," said BG center Kevin Netter, who missed only one of seven shots and was one of four Falcons in double figures. "Kent had beat us every time we played them."
The second half came out of the mouth of Mount Dakich, along with lava, smoke and ash.
"How was halftime on the Dakich-o-meter?" someone asked John Reimold, the game's top scorer with 23 points.
"Real high," Reimold said. Netter rolled his eyes in a gesture that said: "Waaay up there."
That's where the Falcons are, 4-0 and unbeaten in the MAC, winners of six straight overall. This wasn't supposed to happen after Dakich's best BG team, led by the league's Player of the Year, Keith McLeod, lost four seniors. Dakich had to play two football players, Cole Magner and Keon Newson, yesterday. He started Magner in the second half when Josh Almanson's ankle gave out.
Dakich can't help the volatile exterior. When Kent State officials incorrectly recycled the shot clock after Matt Jakeway hit the side of the backboard with a jumper, with Kent leading, 72-71, in the last 2 minutes, Dakich fumed and fussed. He gave the air around him the old one-two. He stomped and seethed. It was quite a show of "histrionics," as he wryly called it.
It also earned a tirade-influenced 5-seconds call on Antonio Gates, which was part of a second-half meltdown in which Gates went 1-for-9 from the floor with three turnovers and no assists. BG always has a strangling defense.
It also has a guy who does not miss many coaching moves. BG scored after a timeout with 2:22 to play on Jabari Mattox's penetration and Reimold's 3-pointer to get within 72-71. Execution after a timeout is an index of good coaching.
After Gates' turnover, BG ran an isolation for Netter, who posted up and was fouled by the shorter Gates. "He's 6-foot-10, weighs 110 pounds, and grew up in a place (Richmond Dale, Ohio) that's smaller than this room," said Dakich.
But Netter made both free throws. BG had the lead for the first time all day and it would not be headed. The loud guy's players had won. They deserved to.
