.png&type=webp)
Bowling Green State University Athletics
Carin Horne Feature
March 21, 2005 | Women's Basketball
March 18, 2005
By JACK CARLE, Sentinel Sports Editor - Shooters cannot have a conscience.
A perfect game from the field or a string of misses, it doesn't matter. If a shooter is open, they have to take the shot without worrying about the consequences.
Carin Horne has that mentality for Bowling Green and in her brief career, she has shown the ability to light it up for the Falcons.
"I am a shooter and I believe the only way to overcome missing a lot of shots is to keep shooting," said Horne, a 5-feet-10 sophomore from Lima. She's third on the team in scoring this season, averaging 11.5 points a game.
There's no better example of Horne's lack of conscience than last Saturday's championship game of the Mid-American Conference tournament against Kent State.
Horne was 1-of-7 from the field in the first half, but made four of her first six shots in the second half. Then with the game on the line in the final minutes, Horne nailed a key jumper with 1:52 to play and followed that with a huge 3-pointer with 1:08 left. The Falcons held on for an 81-75 win to claim the tournament title and an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
"I was open, I took the shot," Horne said. "I had confidence that if I took the shot it was going to go in. I knew we had to score to keep the lead up in order to beat Kent."
Curt Miller, BG's head coach, knows that Horne won't hesitate to shoot at key times in the game.
"She's a very confident kid," Miller said. "You always expect her to step up and make the big shot. Through her first two years she is a kid who has shined in big games.
"It would not be a shock if Carin Horne eventually leads this league in scoring, that's how talented she is offensively."
In last year's MAC championship game against Eastern Michigan, Horne was BG's No. 1 offensive option late in the game and finished with 17 points. This season she scored 17 points in a key late-season win over Toledo and had 17 in the title game against Kent.
"She hit two huge shots (against Kent)," Miller said. "Not too many kids in the entire country in that situation hit those shots. She made two individual plays, outside of the diagrammed play."
Being able to get free for her own shot is what sets Horne apart from many other women's players.
"In the women's game, you need screens and you need the execution of plays to really get people shots," Miller said. "Carin is one of those special players that can really create a shot for herself."
Horne got off to a slow start last season for a number of reasons, but Miller knew the talent was there.
"There was so much potential there. She was a tremendous athlete ... who I thought had the ability to be a physical specimen and really be an athletic, dominating three (small forward) that could score inside and out," Miller said. "After she learned some of the fundamentals and some of the techniques that we were asking her to do, her instincts and her ability for the game just took over."
Horne's breakout game last season was a 34-point effort against Ball State.
"That just showed how explosive she was offensively," Miller said.
For her part, Horne continued to work hard to earn a spot in the lineup last season.
"Once he (Miller) kind of figured out I was a shooter and a scorer and I could do things he probably didn't know I was capable of doing, that's when he really opened his eyes and gave me more playing time," she said.
Horne, who likes to test herself by playing pick-up games against better players, especially males, continued her hard work over the summer to get ready for the current season.
"Every day I was going to the gym ... basically doing things that would help us during the season," she said.
The effort has paid off as the Falcons are 16-4 with Horne in the starting lineup this season. The team has advanced to the NCAA tournament for the first time in a decade. Bowling Green plays Kansas State Saturday in Seattle with tipoff at 8 p.m.
"Ever since I was a kid, I dreamed of playing Division I and going to the NCAA and playing games against all kinds of top teams," Horne said. "It definitely was a dream, but now our dream has come true."
