Bowling Green State University Athletics
Falcons Face Kansas State in NCAA Championships Saturday
March 16, 2005 | Women's Basketball
March 16, 2005
BGSU's Game Notes (pages 1-36) in PDF Format
Player information (pages 37-49) in PDF Format
Season Boxscores (pages 50-63) in PDF Format
Download Free Acrobat Reader
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio -
GAME #31
BGSU
vs.
KANSAS STATE
NCAA Championships First Round
Sat., March 19, 2005
5:00 p.m. PT
Bank of America Arena (9,394)
Seattle, Wash.
RADIO: WBGU-FM (88.1) - Brian George and Greg Gania
TELEVISION: ESPN2 - Dave Revsine, Mary Murphy and Rob Stone
SERIES: Kansas State leads, 1-0
LAST MEETING: Kansas State 72, BGSU 60 (Dec. 1, 1989)
The Bowling Green State University women's basketball team, for the first time since 1994, heads to the NCAA Championships ... the Falcons (23-7 [13-3 MAC]) of fourth-year head coach Curt Miller, the Mid-American Conference regular-season and tournament champions, earned the league's automatic bid to the national tourney ... BGSU is the #13 seed in the Kansas City Regional, and the Falcons will play a first-round game against #4 seed Kansas State University on Saturday evening (March 19) ... the Falcons and Wildcats will meet at Bank of America Arena at Hec Edmundson Pavilion (9,394), with start time scheduled for 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time (8:00 p.m. Eastern) ... the game will be televised on ESPN2, with Dave Revsine and Mary Murphy handling play-by-play and color analyst duties, respectively, and Rob Stone the sideline reporter.
FALCONS IN THE NCAA
BGSU has qualified for the NCAA Championships for the seventh time in school history ... the Falcons are 1-6 in previous tourney appearances, with a 1-2 mark at home and a record of 0-4 on the road ... the Kansas State game marks the first neutral-site game in NCAA play in school history.
THE MAC IN THE NCAA
Entering the 2005 NCAA Championships, Mid-American Conference schools have posted a combined record of 5-25 in NCAA tourney play ... no MAC school has won an NCAA tournament game since 1996, when both Kent State and Toledo picked up first-round wins.
FALCONS WIN MAC REGULAR-SEASON AND TOURNEY TITLES
Bowling Green enters the NCAA Championships as the MAC's automatic qualifier, after winning the Kraft MAC Tournament at Gund Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, last weekend ... the Falcons won the MAC West Division and captured the overall regular-season title with a league-best 13-3 record ... that earned the Brown and Orange the top seed for the conference tourney ... BG proceeded to beat #8 Miami (84-68) in the quarterfinals, #4 Eastern Michigan (77-57) in the semifinal round and #2 Kent State (81-75) in the championship game ... the Falcons averaged 80.7 points per game in the Kraft MAC Tournament.
STORYLINES - HOW THEY GOT HERE
BGSU POINTS OF PRIDE
BGSU'S MAC TOURNAMENT HISTORY
The Falcons participated in the MAC Tournament for the 21st time in its 24-year history ... after beating Kent State in the final, BG has posted a 27-14 record since the MAC Tournament was instituted in 1982 ... the Falcons' complete game-by-game tournament history can be found on page 26 of these notes ... BGSU's win total ranks the Falcons third among league teams, and the .659 winning percentage is the second-best of any school (Toledo is 35-14 [.714], Kent State is now 28-15 [.651]) ... the Falcons' total of seven tournament titles ties UT for the most in MAC history ... the Falcons earned a first-round bye for the first time since the league adopted the current 13-team tourney format prior to the 1999-2000 season ... BG was the #1 seed this year, for the first time since the 1993-94 team won both the regular-season and tournament titles.
FRESHMAN OF THE TOURNAMENT
BGSU freshman Kate Achter was the runner-up for MAC Freshman of the Year ... but, it's probably safe to say that she was the freshman of the tournament ... Achter was named the Kraft MAC Tournament MVP after the Falcons won the league tourney title ... Achter averaged a team-high 18.0 points and 5.7 assists per game in the three victories in Cleveland ... she becomes the fourth freshman to garner tournament MVP honors, joining Western Michigan's Tracy Well (1985), Toledo's Dana Drew (1995) and Kent State's Andrea Csaszar (2002).
HONEGGER, McDOWELL JOIN ACHTER ON ALL-TOURNEY TEAM
Sophomore Liz Honegger and junior Casey McDowell joined freshman Kate Achter on the MAC's All-Tournament Team ... McDowell had 16.3 points per game, highlighted by a 31-point outburst in the win over Miami ... Honegger averaged 14.7 points and a team-leading 7.3 rebounds in the three games, making 8-of-16 three-point attempts (.500) in Cleveland.
FALCONS IN THE FINAL
In 2005, BGSU advanced to the championship game of the Kraft MAC Tournament for the eighth time in school history ... the Falcons are now 7-1 in the championship game.
BGSU'S MAC TOURNAMENT FACTS
ABOUT THE FALCONS
The Falcons take an overall record of 23-7 into Saturday's Kansas State game, and BGSU finished with a record of 13-3 in MAC play ... the Falcons won the league's West Division, finished with the MAC's top record and earned the number-one seed for the Kraft MAC Tournament ... BG went 7-1 in the month of February, and the Falcons have gone 4-0 in March to date ... BGSU started March with a come-from-behind win at Northern Illinois (75-72, March 1) to clinch the league title, before beating Miami, 84-68, in the league tourney's quarterfinal round (March 9) ... two days later, the Brown and Orange topped Eastern Michigan, 77-57, in the semifinals, and the Falcons completed the tourney run with a six-point win, 81-75, over Kent State (March 12) ... the Falcons' only February loss came at EMU, 57-52 (Feb. 19), snapping a streak of five consecutive wins to begin the month ... but, BG has gone 6-0 since, bouncing back with home wins over East Division-leading Marshall (73-62, Feb. 23) and arch-rival Toledo (72-71, Feb. 26) ... BG has won 11 of the last 13 games, 15 of 17 and 20 of 23 contests ... the team's other MAC losses came at Kent State, 62-53 on Jan. 26, and in the first EMU meeting, 51-48 on Jan. 12, setbacks that the Falcons avenged in the conference tournament ... BGSU finished the non-conference portion of the schedule with a 7-4 mark for the third consecutive season.
BGSU is averaging 71.5 points per game, leading the MAC and ranking 28th in the country ... the Falcons are 48th in the nation in scoring margin (+9.0), and currently have four players - three sophomores and a freshman - with double-digit scoring averages ... soph Liz Honegger paces the Brown and Orange in scoring (14.5 ppg), and also leads the team in rebounding (7.9), steals (2.0) and blocks (1.7) ... classmate Ali Mann has 13.9 points and 7.4 boards per game to rank second on the team in each category, while another soph, Carin Horne, has 11.5 points and 4.3 rebounds per outing to rank third in both ... freshman Kate Achter is averaging 11.0 points and a team-high 4.1 assists per game, and is fourth on the team with 4.0 rebounds ... redshirt junior Casey McDowell, who exploded for 31 points vs. Miami in the league tourney quarterfinal, has 6.8 points per contest, while sophomore Megan Thorburn and senior Kelly Kapferer average 3.5 and 3.4 points, respectively ... Honegger is the only player to have started all 30 games this year, while Mann and McDowell have made 29 starts apiece and Achter 23 ... Horne has started 20 games and Thorburn 10 ... Achter, Horne and McDowell joined Honegger and Mann in the starting lineup for 12 consecutive games, before Kapferer replaced the injured Mann in the starting five at NIU ... Mann was back in the lineup for each of the three games in the Kraft MAC Tournament.
BGSU is shooting 42.6 percent from the field and 71.6% from the free-throw line ... the Falcons have allowed opponents to shoot 39.1% from the floor, and the foes have a 70.2% success rate from the stripe ... BG has drained 181 three-point field goals this season, and the Falcons are averaging 31.2% from beyond the arc and have made 6.03 treys per game ... the opposition has made 5.33 triples per contest, and BG foes have shot 31.4% from three-point land.
In MAC play, Mann led the Falcons with 15.0 points and 7.8 rebounds per game, while Honegger finished close behind, with 14.3 points and 7.4 boards ... Horne and Achter averaged 12.3 and 10.3 points per game, respectively ... BGSU had 69.2 points per game and a scoring margin of +11.0 in league action this winter ... BG shot 41.6% in MAC games, while allowing opponents to shoot just 37.8% from the floor.
BGSU ended the 2003-04 season with a record of 21-10, and the Falcons finished the MAC campaign with an 11-5 slate ... BG tied for second in the West Division, then posted a pair of buzzer-beating wins in the league tourney to advance to the championship game ... head coach Curt Miller welcomed back 11 letterwinners, including three starters, from that team ... the returning starters, all sophomores, are Honegger, Mann and Thorburn ... Miller's team includes three seniors in Kapferer, Tene Lewis and Sakima Smith ... a pair of juniors, Jill Lause and McDowell, also return ... in addition to the three returning starters, the sophomore class consists of Amber Flynn, Julie Gompers and Horne ... Gompers has yet to see action this season due to injury ... two freshmen, guards Achter and Whitney Taylor, round out the Falcon squad.
SCOUTING KANSAS STATE
Kansas State, like BGSU, enters the NCAA Championships with an overall record of 23-7, and the Wildcats finished Big 12 Conference play with a 12-4 league slate, tying for third place ... K-State, currently ranked 16th in the nation in both the USA Today/ESPN and Associated Press polls, advanced to the conference tournament's championship game before losing to #5/6 Baylor, 68-55 ... senior forward Kendra Wecker, the Big 12 Conference Player of the Year, was recently named a finalist for the Kodak/WBCA All-America Team ... she averages a double-double, with 20.6 points and 10.1 rebounds per game, and also has 2.7 assists per outing ... Wecker is the league's all-time leading scorer, with 2,279 career points, and she holds the school's rebounding record (1,067) as well ... senior guard Laurie Koehn has 12.2 points and has made 89 three-point field goals this season ... Koehn is fifth in the country with 3.0 treys per game ... senior Megan Mahoney averages 9.6 points and a team-high 3.5 assists per game, but will miss the remainder of the season due to an injury suffered in the Baylor game ... sophomore Claire Coggins averages 9.4 points per outing, while senior Brie Madden has 5.9 points and 4.3 rebounds ... last season, K-State went 25-6 and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Championships for a second-straight year after making a Sweet Sixteen appearance in 2001-02 ... head coach Deb Patterson is in her ninth year with the Wildcats, and has a record of 174-102 ... the school's official athletics web site is www.k-statesports.com.
THE SERIES
The Falcons and Kansas State have met just once ... the Wildcats defeated BGSU, 72-60, in the Domino's Classic in Missoula, Montana ... Nadira Hazim had 19 points, while Diana Miller scored 18 points and pulled down 13 rebounds for K-State ... Tecca Thompson and Angie Bonner scored 16 points apiece for the Falcons, while Traci Gorman had 12 points and eight boards ... the boxscore from that game is in the pdf version of these notes.
K-STATE/MAC TIES
A trio of Kansas State coaches have ties to current Mid-American Conference schools ... assistant coach Stephanie White is in her first season with K-State after spending the 2003-04 season at Ball State ... Wildcat head coach Deb Patterson spent five seasons (1986-87 to 1990-91) as an assistant at Northern Illinois ... associate head coach Kamie Ethridge was a graduate assistant at NIU in 1989-90 before becoming a full-time assistant the following year ... NIU's women's basketball team participated in the North Star Conference before joining the Mid-Continent Conference in time for the 1992-93 season.
K-STATE/BGSU TIES
Kansas State Director of Athletics Tim Weiser served as A.D. at Eastern Michigan for four years in the mid-1990s (1993-97) ... he arrived at K-State after a three-year run at Colorado State ... during Weiser's time in Fort Collins, the CSU head women's basketball coach was Tom Collen, a 1977 BGSU graduate, and the associate head coach was Curt Miller, the current BGSU head coach.
BGSU VS. THE BIG 12
The Falcons have an overall record of 3-7 against current members of the Big 12 Conference ... BGSU's wins have come over Baylor (1-0 series), Iowa State (1-1) and Kansas (1-1) ... BG is 0-1 against K-State, Nebraska and Oklahoma State, and the Falcons are 0-2 all-time against Colorado ... the Falcons have never met Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Texas A&M or Texas Tech in women's basketball.
BG GOES TO WASHINGTON (STATE)
Saturday will mark the Falcons' first game in the city of Seattle, but BGSU has played four games in the state of Washington ... on two occasions, the Falcons have headed to Pullman, Wash., to play in tournaments hosted by Washington State ... BGSU is 3-1 in the state, including a tourney title after wins over Baylor (78-63) and host WSU (83-73, OT) on Dec. 11-12, 1987 ... nearly 11 years later (Dec. 4-5, 1998), the Falcons lost to the host school at the Cougar Shootout (71-63) before bouncing back for a 90-77 win over American.
LAST TIME OUT
Bowling Green won the Kraft MAC Tournament championship (have we mentioned that yet?) with victories over Miami, Eastern Michigan and Kent State at Cleveland's Gund Arena ... complete recaps and boxscores can be found on pages 19 through 22 of the pdf.
MILLER NAMED MAC COACH OF THE YEAR
Fourth-year Falcon head coach Curt Miller has been named the MAC Coach of the Year for 2004-05 ... the announcement was made at the MAC Tournament banquet on March 8 in Cleveland ... the award is the result of balloting by members of the MAC News Media Association ... Miller guided the Falcons, picked to finish third in the West Division, to the league's best overall record, a MAC regular-season championship and the top seed for the Kraft MAC Tournament ... the Falcons finished 13-3 in MAC play, and BG enters Saturday's Kansas State game with an overall mark of 23-7 ... Miller has an overall head-coaching mark of 65-52 and a MAC record of 35-29 ... BGSU is 44-17 overall and went 24-8 in conference play over the last two seasons ... the 2004-05 season marks the fourth time in school history that a BGSU coach has earned the league's coach-of-the-year award, and the first time in 12 years ... Fran Voll picked up the award in both the 1986-87 and 1988-89 seasons, while Jaci Clark earned MAC C-O-Y honors in 1992-93.
HONEGGER, MANN, HORNE ON ALL-MAC TEAMS
Sophomores Liz Honegger, Ali Mann and Carin Horne were named to the All-MAC Team, the league office announced March 7 ... Honegger and Mann each were named to the second team, while Horne earned honorable mention ... Mann earned all-league honors for the second time, after being honorable mention as a freshman, while Honegger and Horne received the honor for the first time in their respective BGSU careers ... the 2004-05 season marks the second time in as many years that BG has had three all-league selections.
ACHTER ON ALL-FRESHMAN TEAM
On Monday, March 7, Kate Achter was selected to the MAC's All-Freshman Team ... the team, as is the case with the All-MAC Team, is the result of voting by the league's 13 head coaches ... Achter is the ninth player in school history, and the second in as many years, to be named to the MAC's All-Freshman Team ... she was the runner-up for MAC Freshman of the Year.
A BALANCED LINEUP
The Falcons have averaged 71.5 points per game this season, ranking 28th in the nation ... BGSU has done so with balanced scoring, as four players are in double digits, but no one averages more than 14.5 points per game ... the team's fourth- and fifth-leading scorers, freshman Kate Achter and junior Casey McDowell, were the team's top-two scorers in the Kraft MAC Tournament ... in those three games, Achter averaged a team-leading 18.0 points per game, while McDowell scored 16.3 points per contest in Cleveland ... a trio of sophomores, Liz Honegger (14.5 ppg on the year, 14.7 in the MAC Ty.), Ali Mann (13.9, 12.7) and Carin Horne (11.5, 11.0), all have/had double-digit averages on the season and in the tourney.
OBI-WAN HAS TAUGHT YOU WELL
The win over Kent State was special for Falcon head coach Curt Miller, for several reasons ... obviously, it gave BGSU the MAC Tournament title and a trip to the NCAA Championships ... but, it also marked Miller's first win over the man he credits for giving him his start in the coaching profession ... Miller spent a year at Kent State as a graduate assistant, and was a volunteer coach on Bob Lindsay's staff during the 1990-91 season ... the Flashes finished 17-12 that year, and enjoyed the second-best turnaround in the nation.
WHEN OFFENSE MET OFFENSE ... AND DEFENSE
Saturday's game will be a matchup of two of the nation's top offenses ... according to the latest NCAA statistics, Kansas State is ranked 25th in the country in scoring offense, averaging 71.8 points per game ... BGSU ranks 28th, at 71.5 points a contest ... K-State is 13th among 324 Division-I schools in scoring margin (+15.7), while the Falcons are 48th (+9.0) ... on the other side of the ball, the Wildcats are 35th in scoring defense (56.1), while the Falcons are 70th in steals per game (10.2) ... K-State is ranked in the top-100 in 13 of the 15 team categories kept by the NCAA during the season, while the Falcons are among the top-100 on 11 of those lists.
SECOND-HALF SUCCESS
The Falcons never trailed in the second half of the Miami and Kent State games at Gund Arena, and BGSU took the lead for good with 17:36 left in the game against EMU ... the Falcons shot 56.5% in the second half of the championship game, including a 58.3% rate (7-for-12) from three-point range ... BG outscored the opponents, 132-103, in the second half of the three tourney contests.
(Much, much more informmation available in the pdf documents at the top of this page)
