Bowling Green State University Athletics
Falcons Open Road Portion of MAC Slate at UB
January 09, 2006 | Women's Basketball
Jan. 9, 2006
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BOWLING GREEN, Ohio -
GAME #13
BGSU at BUFFALO
Tue., January 10, 2006
7:00 p.m.
Alumni Arena (6,100)
Buffalo, N.Y.
RECORDS: BGSU 10-2, 1-0 MAC // Buffalo 6-6, 1-0 MAC
RADIO: WBGU-FM (88.1) - Rob Trautman
SERIES: BGSU leads, 6-5
LAST MEETING: BGSU 70, at Buffalo 45 (Jan. 5, 2005)
For the Bowling Green State University women's basketball team, the one-game homestand has ended ... now, it is back to familiar terrain - the road ... the Falcons of head coach Curt Miller begin the away portion of the Mid-American Conference schedule with a Tuesday (Jan. 10) tilt at the University at Buffalo ... the Falcons and Bulls will meet in a 7:00 p.m. contest at UB's Alumni Arena (6,100).
MANN REACHES MILLENNIUM MARK
Junior Ali Mann added another accomplishment to her already-impressive list ... on Saturday (Jan. 7), Mann became just the 19th player in school history to reach the 1,000-point mark for her career ... the Chelsea, Mich., native became only the sixth BGSU player to reach the millennium mark in her junior season.
ROAD TRIP
BGSU's win over Akron Saturday (Jan. 7) came in the Falcons' lone home game in a span of 42 days ... this week's games, at UB (Jan. 10) and Kent State (Jan. 14), complete a stretch in which the Falcons play eight of nine games away from the friendly confines of venerable Anderson Arena ... prior to the UA game, BG had not played at home since Dec. 6 ... during that month (between Dec. 6 and Jan. 7), the Falcons logged over 4,800 miles by bus, airplane or van on trips to four different states ... of course, veteran members of the team are quite accustomed to such travel ... last season, the Falcons traveled over 5,200 miles during the month of December alone.
MANN, HONEGGER MOVING UP SCORING CHART
Juniors Ali Mann and Liz Honegger, in just over two seasons, already have added their names to the Falcon career scoring chart ... Mann, as mentioned, surpassed the 1,000-point mark for her BGSU career in the win over Akron (Jan. 7), and now has a total of 1,014 points ... she moved past former teammate Lindsay Austin into 18th place on the BGSU chart ... Honegger currently stands at 934 points, in 21st place ... a total of 19 players have scored 1,000 points at BG, with only six (Mann, Jackie Motycka, Sara Puthoff, Francine Miller, Lori Albers and Chris Tuttle) reaching that plateau in their junior season ... both Mann (fifth) and Honegger (ninth) rank among BGSU's top 10 in career points per game.
HEAD COACH Curt Miller
BGSU head coach Curt Miller picked up the 70th victory of his career at Detroit on Nov. 30, and garnered win number 75 Saturday (Jan. 7) vs. Akron ... his career record currently stands at 75-55, in his fifth year ... over the last two-plus seasons, however, Miller and the Falcons have a record of 54-20 ... BGSU has gone 25-8 in MAC regular-season play over the last two-plus seasons, and 31-9 in all games vs. conference foes during that span (6-1 in league tournament play).
Curt Miller - YEAR BY YEAR AT BGSU
Season Overall MAC 2001-02 9-19 (.321) 6-10 (.375) 2002-03 12-16 (.429) 5-11 (.313) 2003-04 21-10 (.677) 11-5 (.688) 2004-05 23-8 (.742) 13-3 (.813) 2005-06 10-2 (.818) 1-0 (1.000) TOTALS 75-55 (.577) 36-29 (.554)
THE DEFENSE NEVER RESTS
DEFENSE DOES IT AGAIN
The Falcons have greatly improved defensively during the Curt Miller Era ... in the 2003-04 season, Miller, 'defensive coordinator' Jennifer Roos and the rest of the Falcons allowed opponents to shoot just 38.8% from the field ... that marked the third-lowest opponent FG pct. in school history, and the lowest since 1977-78 ... the 2004-05 squad nearly matched that success, allowing foes to shoot just 39.1% from the floor ... the 1976-77 team owns the school record, allowing opponents to shoot only 34.8% ... that '76-77 season is the first year that such statistics are available ... since Miller and Roos arrived, the Falcons have posted three of the top-six totals in that category in school history ... this year, through 12 games, the BGSU defense has allowed opponents to shoot just 36.9% from the floor ...
ABOUT THE FALCONS
SCOUTING BUFFALO
Buffalo will enter the BGSU game with an overall record of 6-6 on the season, and the Bulls are 1-0 in MAC play after a 78-75 road win over Miami on Saturday ... UB has already topped the win total for all of last season (four), and the Bulls are halfway to last year's total of MAC victories through just one game ... after starting the season at 0-3, Buffalo has won six of the last nine games ... individually, sophomore forward Heather Turner leads the team in both scoring and rebounding, with 14.2 points and 8.2 rebounds per outing ... senior guard Brooke Meunier also is scoring in double digits, with 12.3 ppg, and has 5.8 boards and 3.4 assists per contest ... freshmen Jamie Schiebner, a forward, and Rachel Matthys, a guard, have 7.8 ppg apiece ... Schiebner leads the Bulls with 7.3 rebounds per game ... sophomore guard Stephanie Bennett has 7.4 points and a team-high 4.6 assists per game ... Bennett, Matthys, Meunier, Schiebner and Turner comprised the starting lineup for head coach Linda Hill-McDonald in the Miami game ... a total of eight letterwinners, including four starters, returned from last year's team that went 4-24 overall and 2-14 in MAC play ... Hill-McDonald, in her first season at UB, has had head-coaching stints at Temple and Minnesota, as well as in the WNBA ... she has a record of 238-262 in her 18th year as a collegiate head coach ... the school's athletics web site is www.buffalobulls.com.
THE SERIES
The Falcons lead Buffalo, 6-5, in the all-time series between the teams, and BGSU has won the last two meetings ... last season, the Brown and Orange opened the MAC schedule with a 70-45 win in New York (Jan. 5, 2005), in the lone 2004-05 game between the Falcons and Bulls ... the teams are deadlocked, 3-3, in games played at Alumni Arena ... seven of the last nine meetings have been decided by 10 points or less, including six by four points or fewer.
THE FALCONS VS. THE MAC
The Falcons have a proud history in the MAC ... BGSU leads the all-time series with 10 of the 11 MAC opponents, and the Falcons evened the series with that 11th team, with a win at Northern Illinois in the teams' last meeting (March 1, 2005) ... BG is the only team in the league with at least a .500 mark against every other MAC school.
FALCONS VS. THE MAC II
BGSU is the lone Mid-American Conference team to currently hold a winning streak against each of the other 11 league schools ... the Falcons went 13-3 in MAC regular season play last year, with the only losses coming to Eastern Michigan (two) and Kent State ... but, BGSU avenged those setbacks by beating EMU in the Kraft MAC Tournament's semifinal round and KSU in the championship.
BGSU-BUFFALO TIES
LAST TIME OUT
Ali Mann, just a junior, added yet another milestone to her already-impressive list of accomplishments as she led the Falcons to a 71-54 over Akron Saturday (Jan. 7) at Anderson Arena ... Mann led all scorers with 25 points in the win, in the process becoming just the 19th player in school history to reach the 1,000-point mark for her career ... the Chelsea, Mich., native became only the sixth BGSU player to reach the millennium mark in her junior season ... classmate Megan Thorburn joined Mann in double digits, posting a season-high 11 points, while sophomore Kate Achter also scored 11 ... Thorburn tied her career best with three three-point field goals, going 3-for-4 from long range ... Niki McCoy led the Zips with a double-double, scoring 14 points and grabbing a game-high 12 rebounds ... the Falcons forced Akron into 27 turnovers, including 19 in the first half alone ... the Zips had a better field-goal percentage than the Falcons, shooting 43.9% from the field to BG's 43.1% ... but, the hosts took nearly 20 more shots than UA, due to the Zips' turnover total ... BG committed 15 turnovers for the game ... the Falcons were behind, 4-3, when head coach Curt Miller took a quick timeout with 2:35 elapsed ... out of that break, however, Mann grabbed a rebound and hit a layup, and BGSU never trailed again ... Mann hit a pair of free throws with 3.5 seconds left in the first half, scoring points 1,000 and 1,001 in the process to give BG a 33-21 lead at the break ... the Falcons scored the first five points of the second half, and UA got no closer than 13 points thereafter.
BACK TO THE EAST
The Falcons' game vs. Akron was BGSU's first conference contest as a member of the MAC's East Division in four years ... BG spent five seasons in the East after the MAC instituted divisional play prior to the 1997-98 academic year ... in 2002, BG was moved to the West Division ... the Falcons spent three seasons in the West, winning the divisional title in 2004-05 ... in early February of 2005, the MAC Council of Presidents approved the return of Bowling Green to the league's East Division in all sports, effective in 2005-06.
SOMETHING ABOUT THAT HOME BENCH ...
BGSU's bench players have scored 20 or more points in a game four times this season to date ... those four games have been the four home contests ... BGSU has averaged 25.0 points off the bench in those games, wins over IPFW (29 bench points), Saint Francis (27), Duquesne (24) and Akron (20).
EAST-WEST-EAST
With the departure of Marshall University, the MAC is down to a 12-team league for women's basketball ... the 2005-06 season is the first utilizing a new wrinkle in the MAC schedule ... each team will still play 16 league games, as has been the case in each of the last seven years ... but, each school will open league play with five intra-divisional games, followed by six cross-divisional contests, and five more intra-divisional games to close the regular season ... so, BGSU will play five games vs. East Division schools to begin and end the season, with six games vs. the West Division teams in the middle of the schedule.
FALCONS FAST TO 10 WINS
BGSU picked up win number 10 on the season in Saturday's (Jan. 7) Akron game ... it marked the second-fastest Falcon team to 10 victories in history, in terms of calendar dates ... the earliest BG squad to 10 wins was the 1986-87 team, which picked up the 10th victory of the year on Jan. 5 ... ironically, that team's 10th win also came vs. the Zips, an 82-63 victory.
FALCONS FOUR-AND-OH AT ANDERSON
BGSU's win over Akron moved the Falcons to 4-0 in home games this season ... the start is the best for BG at Anderson Arena in eight years ... the 1997-98 team started the year with an 8-0 home record ... BGSU's best-ever home start was in 1992-93, when the Falcons won the first 13 games of the year at 'The House That Roars' ... the 1974-75 (7-0) and 1975-76 (6-0) teams are the only BG squads to complete the season with an unblemished home record ... both the 1992-93 (13-1) and '93-94 (12-1) squads were undefeated through the regular season at Anderson, before losing an NCAA Tournament game at home.
HOME SWEET HOME
The Falcons' win over Akron, as mentioned, moved the team's record to 4-0 at Anderson Arena this winter, and continued the team's recent success at home ... last season, BGSU posted a record of 9-1 at Anderson Arena ... the Falcons have won 15 of the last 16 home games, dating to late in the 2003-04 campaign ... BG has outscored the opponents by an average of 23.0 points in the four home games this season, after posting a +15.9 scoring margin at Anderson last winter.
ROAD SWEET ROAD?
With a win at Indiana, the Falcons opened the road portion of the schedule on a successful note ... BGSU is now 4-1 in road games this year, with wins at Detroit, FIU and Oakland and a loss to Kentucky ... last year, BG went 6-2 in MAC road games for the second-straight winter ... since the start of the 2003-04 season, the Falcons are 12-4 on the road in conference play, and 21-10 overall ... that comes on the heels of a four-year span in which BG was 15-39 on the road and 8-24 in MAC road games ... overall last season, BGSU went 9-5 in away games, the team's highest road win total since the 1993-94 team went 11-2.
GET A STOP
The Falcons have played some solid defense in the early portion of the season, as evidenced by opponents' 54.7 points-per-game average through 12 games ... BG has shown the ability to shut the opposing offense down for long stretches ... in fact, the Falcons have held the opponent to a scoreless stretch of at least four minutes in 11 of the 12 games (and, in the other game, held Saint Francis without a point for 3:48 during one segment) ... through those 12 games this season, BGSU has ...
NOT BAD, NOT BAD AT ALL
Despite the losses to Delaware and Kentucky, the Falcons have won 16 of the last 19 games, dating to Feb. 19 ... the only other loss in that time was to Kansas State in the NCAA Championships in March.
MANN, HONEGGER HAVE DOUBLE VISION
Juniors Ali Mann and Liz Honegger have been in double digits in the scoring column much more often than not over their careers ... this season, Mann has scored at least 10 points in 11 of the 12 games, including each of the last nine ... she had 24 double-figure games last year, and 54 in her 74 career games ... Honegger has eight double-digit games this winter to date, after 25 such games last season ... she has hit twin figures in 47 of her 74 career contests.
HONEGGER, MANN HAVE DOUBLE-DOUBLE VISION
Junior Ali Mann recorded a double-double at Kentucky (Jan. 2), with a game-high 24 points and a BG-best 11 rebounds ... that was Mann's second double-double of the season and the 14th of her BGSU career, tying her with classmate Liz Honegger for the lead among active Falcons in both categories ... Honegger recorded her first double-double of the season at Oakland (Dec. 22), with game-high totals of 19 points and 16 rebounds ... she was at it again in the Iona game, exploding for 24 points and adding 12 boards ... Mann came close to posting a double-double in three of the season's first five games, before turning the trick in the Duquesne game (Dec. 6) ... Mann had game-high totals of 14 points and 11 rebounds vs. the Dukes.
SHE BLOCKS SHOTS, TOO
With arms long enough to change the radio station from the second row of a van, it is no surprise that Liz Honegger, in less than two-and-a-half seasons, has placed her name all over the BGSU lists for blocked shots ... this season, Honegger has 23 blocks through 12 games to lead the Falcons ... she tied two of her own single-season marks in 2004-05, and is moving up the career list ... Honegger, who matched the BG record with 50 blocks as a freshman, had 50 more rejections last season ... she set a school mark with 27 blocks in MAC games as a frosh, and matched that record in league games last winter ... Honegger is in second place on the career list, and is on pace to obliterate the BGSU career record for blocks per game.
FALCONS ON THE RADIO
All of the Falcons' regular-season games, plus any postseason action, are scheduled to be on the air again in 2005-06 ... student station WBGU-FM (88.1), the flagship station for the women's basketball Falcons, is scheduled to air every regular-season contest (schedule subject to change) ... the 2005-06 academic year marks the fourth season of an agreement between the BGSU department of athletics and the Bowling Green Radio Sports Organization (BGRSO) to have WBGU serve as the flagship station for both hockey and women's basketball ... games produced by BGRSO can be heard on the web, both at bgrso.org and via BGSU Falcons All-Access package available through BGSUFalcons.com.
LAUSE, MANN, McDOWELL NAMED CAPTAINS
Seniors Jill Lause and Casey McDowell and junior Ali Mann are the tri-captains of the 2005-06 Falcons ... the three were selected in a vote of team members as well as coaching staff ... in the last three seasons, since Lause began her collegiate career and McDowell transferred from Indiana State, the Falcons averaged almost 19 wins per year ... over the last two-plus seasons, since the start of Mann's freshman year, BG has gone 54-20 and twice advanced to the MAC Tournament's championship game.
