Bowling Green State University Athletics
Falcons To Meet Miami In Friday's Semifinals
March 11, 2004 | Women's Basketball
March 11, 2004
CLEVELAND, Ohio - The Bowling Green State University women's basketball team will face top-seeded Miami University in semifinal-round action in the 2004 Kraft Mid-American Conference Tournament at Cleveland's Gund Arena. The game will begin at noon on Friday (March 12).
The contest will be televised as part of the MAC TV package, and is scheduled to air on Fox Sports Ohio, Fox Sports Detroit, Fox Sports Chicago and Empire Sports. Dave Weekley and Debbie Leonard will have the call. Additionally, the game will be broadcast by BGSU student radio station WBGU-FM (88.1), with Kevin Wernert and Aaron Rund on the play-by-play and analysis duties, respectively. The radio broadcast can be picked up on the internet through either bgsufalcons.com or bgrso.org. And, fans can follow the game through the 'gametracker' function here on bgsufalcons.com.
Some additional notes on the game...
The Bowling Green State University women's basketball team, having advanced to the semifinal round of the Kraft Mid-American Conference Tournament for the first time since 1998, will take on top-seeded Miami University Friday (March 12). The game is scheduled to begin at noon at Gund Arena (11,000) in downtown Cleveland, Ohio.
BGSU'S MAC TOURNAMENT HISTORY
The Falcons are participating in the MAC Tournament for the 20th time in its 23-year history ... BGSU has won two tourney games for the first time since the 1994 team won the league tourney title ... BG has posted an overall record of 23-13 since the MAC Tournament was instituted in 1982 ... BGSU's win total ranks the Falcons third among league teams, and the .639 winning percentage also is the third-highest of any MAC school ... BGSU is 9-0 all-time in home games, 2-5 in road games and 12-8 in neutral-site contests ... BG is now 8-6 in the quarterfinal round, and the Falcons enter the Miami game with a 6-5 record in semifinal-round contests ... the Falcons have advanced to the championship game six times, with a perfect 6-0 mark in such games ... BGSU has won six tourney titles, with the most recent coming in 1994.
THE BGSU-MIAMI SERIES
The Falcons lead Miami, 29-23, in the all-time series between the teams, and BGSU holds a 3-1 lead in neutral-site games vs. the Redskins/RedHawks ... MU, however, has had the upper hand as of late, having won five consecutive games and six of the last seven meetings ... Miami took this year's lone regular-season meeting, 92-81 in Oxford, (Feb. 3, 2004) ... BGSU's last series win came four years ago (Feb. 19, 2000), an 82-79 Falcon win at Anderson Arena, 82-79 ... that was the only game decided by single digits in the last 10 series meetings.
BGSU VS. MIAMI IN THE MAC TOURNAMENT
The Falcons have met Miami just once in league tournament play, having posted an 84-63 victory in the 1990 championship game at Cobo Arena in Detroit, Mich.
FALCONS DOWN WMU IN QUARTERFINAL THRILLER
BGSU senior Lindsay Austin hit a jumper at the buzzer, giving the Falcons a 63-62 victory over Western Michigan Wednesday afternoon (March 10) ... the game, a quarterfinal contest in the Kraft MAC Tournament, was held at Gund Arena in downtown Cleveland ... with the win, the fourth-seeded Falcons improve to 20-9 on the season, while fifth-seeded WMU drops to 17-12 ... the finish was nearly identical to the teams' regular-season meeting at BGSU's Anderson Arena on Feb. 7 ... n that game, Austin's buzzer-beater in the lane gave the Falcons a 69-67 win ... in the regular-season meeting, the Falcons and Broncos were tied before Austin hit her decisive shot ... at the Gund, the Broncos had taken a one-point lead on a pair of Kelly Koerber free throws with 11.8 seconds left ... following Koerber's second successful toss, head coach Curt Miller eschewed a timeout ... BG brought the ball upcourt, and Austin found it in her hands with time running out ... the Cincinnati native, at the top of the key, drove to her left and got just inside the three-point line ... with a Bronco defender guarding her closely, Austin rose and shot just before the horn sounded, and the ball hit the front rim and caromed in, sparking a wild celebration among the Falcon faithful ... the Falcons began on a successful note, opening a 31-12 lead, but the Broncos went on a 20-2 run spanning the end of the first half and the start of the second, cutting the Falcons' lead to 33-32 ... Bronco freshman Carrie Moore, held to 1-for-7 shooting in the first half, scored 16 of her game-high 19 points in the second half ... WMU took its first lead of the game on back-to-back three-pointers by Moore with just over 13 minutes left ... the Broncos led by as many as five points on two occasions, the last at 53-48 after a Maria Jilian jumper with 7:49 left, but the Falcons erased that lead with a trio of three-pointers -- from Austin, freshman Carin Horne and senior Stefanie Wenzel -- over a two-minute span ... Wenzel's trey, her fifth of the game, put the Falcons head by four, but the Broncos battled back with buckets by Lori Crisman and Koerber, tying the contest with 3:28 remaining ... junior Kelly Kapferer hit a jumper with 2:36 on the clock, but Crisman got an offensive rebound and drew a foul with 2:10 remaining ... she split her free throws to cut the Falcon lead to a single point with just over two minutes left ... the score remained the same until Horne followed her own shot and banked in a rebound layup with 45 seconds left ... Jilian responded with a driving, spinning jumper in the lane with 32.9 seconds remaining, cutting the BG lead to 61-60 ... on the ensuing possession, Austin was fouled, but missed the front end of a one-and-one opportunity, and the Broncos rebounded ... BG was whistled for a foul on the next possession, sending Koerber to the line for her two successful tosses and setting the stage for the frantic finish ... Wenzel led four Falcons in double digits with 15 points, tying her career best with five three-pointers ... Austin and freshman Liz Honegger had 11 points apiece, with Austin adding a game-high nine assists and eight rebounds, while Kapferer scored 10 points off the bench ... Jilian scored 17 points and Koerber 16 for Western ... Moore, Jilian and Koerber combined for 36 of the Broncos' 41 second-half points ... BGSU shot .413 from the field for the game, while the Broncos' .387 field-goal percentage included a first-half rate of just .276 ... the Falcons held a 48-34 rebounding advantage, and BG had 23 offensive boards ... but, the Brown and Orange committed 23 turnovers to Western's 11 ... MAC Freshman of the Year Ali Mann had seven points and a game-best nine rebounds, while Horne had seven points and seven boards.
IT TAKES A THIEF: AUSTIN TIES BGSU CAREER STEALS RECORD
With four steals vs. the Broncos, senior Lindsay Austin has tied the BGSU career record for steals ... Austin, the MAC's Defensive Player of the Year, now has 241 steals, tying her with Lori Albers (1989-94) for the school mark ... Austin's nine assists vs. WMU make her only the fourth person in school history to amass 500 career assists.
20 WINS FOR THE FALCONS
BGSU has put together a 20-win season for the ninth time in school history, but the first since the 1997-98 campaign ... that '97-98 squad, Jaci Clark's last BGSU squad, went 21-8 en route to a WNIT berth.
WENZEL DIALS LONG DISTANCE
Senior Stefanie Wenzel tied her season and career bests, making five three-point field goals in the win over Western ... Wenzel now has made a total of 61 three-pointers this season, the second-highest single-season total in BGSU annals ... Angie Farmer holds the school record with 78 successful treys in the 1999-2000 campaign.
A WIN AT THE NEUTRAL SITE
The win over the Broncos marked BGSU's first MAC Tournament win at a neutral site since the 1993-94 team won the league tourney crown ... the Falcons advanced to the semifinals in both 1997 and 1998, but the quarterfinal-round games were held at campus sites in both of those seasons.
MOST-IMPROVED TEAM IN THE MAC?
A case can be made that the Falcons are the MAC's most-improved team ... BGSU is currently 20-9 overall, and the Falcons finished at 11-5 in conference play ... BGSU has topped the overall win total from a year ago by eight games, the highest improvement in the league ... last year's squad went 12-16 overall and 5-11 in the MAC ... BGSU, six games better than last season in league play, was the only team to improve by more than three games over last season in MAC action.
BGSU AT THE GUND
The Falcons now have a 1-1 record at Gund Arena ... in the lone meeting prior to Wednesday's win over Western, BGSU dropped an 81-63 decision to Toledo in the 2001 tourney ... BGSU, the ninth-seed that year, led at the half, but the top-seeded Rockets took the lead for good with 16 minutes left ... that was the final game before the Curt Miller Era began.
ARE YOU EXPERIENCED? HAVE YOU EVER BEEN EXPERIENCED?
Prior to this season, only four members of the current BGSU team had been involved in a game at Gund Arena ... seniors Lindsay Austin and Stefanie Wenzel and redshirt junior Kelly Kapferer all were freshmen on the 2000-01 Falcon squad that lost to Toledo ... Austin started that game, scoring four points, while Kapferer had four points off the bench ... Wenzel did not see action in that game ... additionally, assistant coach Kevin Eckert had been involved in one prior game at Gund Arena, as a member of the Buffalo coaching staff.
