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Bowling Green State University Athletics
Falcons Head to Orlando
November 16, 2006 | Women's Basketball
Nov. 16, 2006
BGSU game notes in PDF Format
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BOWLING GREEN, Ohio -
BGSU vs. ALBANY
Fri., November 17, 2006 • 5:00 p.m.
UCF Arena (5,100) • Orlando, Fla.
RECORDS: BGSU 1-1 (28-3 in 2005-06) // Albany 0-1 (7-21 in '05-06) *
RADIO: WBGU-FM (88.1) - Brian Scullin and Paul Braverman
SERIES: First Meeting
* Albany's record prior to a Wednesday (Nov. 15) game vs. Siena
THE GAME
The Bowling Green State University women's basketball team, coming off a loss for just the fifth time in the last 40 games, looks to bounce back with a pair of games this weekend ... the Falcons of head coach Curt Miller, the two-time defending Mid-American Conference regular-season and tournament champions, head to Orlando, Fla., for the UCF Golden Knights Tournament ... BGSU will take on the University at Albany in Friday's (Nov. 17) first game, beginning at 5:00 p.m. ... Fairleigh Dickinson University will meet the host University of Central Florida (UCF) in the second game, at 7:00 p.m. ... on Saturday, the consolation game begins at 3:00 p.m., with the championship contest set for 5:00 p.m. ... all four games will be played at the UCF Arena (5,100) ... both of BG's games in the tournament will be broadcast by WBGU-FM 88.1, with Brian Scullin and Paul Braverman mikeside.
CIRCLE OF LIFE
The Falcons have participated in a tournament at UCF once before ... nearly nine years ago, then-coach Jaci Clark and her BGSU team played in the eight-team UCF Turkey Shootout (Nov 28-30, 1997) ... the Falcons picked up a first-round win over Butler, before losing in the semifinal round to Syracuse, 71-67 (Nov. 29, 1997) ... that SU squad featured a young assistant coach by the name of Curt Miller ... the '97-98 campaign marked Miller's fourth and final season at Syracuse, as he then spent three years at Colorado State before taking his first head-coaching job, at Bowling Green, in 2001.
FALCON FLORIDA FACTS
The Falcons have made four previous trips to the state of Florida, all in the last decade ... BGSU has posted an overall record of 5-3 in the Sunshine State ... the Falcons have participated in tournaments hosted by UCF (Nov. 28-30, 1997; see above note), Miami (Dec. 27-28, 2001) and Florida Atlantic (Dec. 6-7, 2002) ... last year (Dec. 10, 2005), BG downed Florida International in a single game on the FIU campus.
LAST TIME OUT
In a thriller at the Joyce Center, host Notre Dame made 5-of-6 free throws in the final half-minute of overtime for an 85-81 win over the Falcons Monday night (Nov. 13) ... all five BGSU starters scored in double digits in a November game that had a March-like atmosphere ... senior Liz Honegger, playing in her home state, had forced the OT session with a three-pointer at the second-half buzzer, one of 11 successful triples for the Brown and Orange ... junior Kate Achter led the Falcons with 20 points, also posting game-high totals of nine assists and five steals ... senior Megan Thorburn had 17 points, including a career-high five treys in six attempts ... seniors Carin Horne and Ali Mann scored 16 and 14 points, respectively, while Honegger had 12 points on four three-balls ... she also had four blocked shots, becoming the school's career leader in the process ... Tulyah Gaines (25) and Charel Allen (21) combined for 46 points for the Irish, while Ashley Barlow had a double-double off the bench, with 19 points and 10 rebounds ... a 10-0 first-half BG run erased an 8-6 lead for the hosts, and the Falcons led for the next 30 minutes, until UND tied it, 68-68, with 5:13 left ... that was the first of four ties over the remainder of regulation.
HONEGGER SETS A(NOTHER) RECORD
It was only a matter of time before senior Liz Honegger became the Falcons' all-time record-holder in blocked shots .... and, for the Lafayette, Ind., native, the record came in her home state ... Honegger blocked four Notre Dame shot attempts on Monday (Nov. 13), giving her a total of 157 for her career and moving her past Angie Bonner (155) into first place on the all-time list ... Honegger now owns all of the BGSU blocking records ... she set the single-game record as a freshman, and has tied or broken the school season marks - both overall and in MAC games - in each of her first three seasons ... not surprisingly, Honegger is on pace to obliterate the school career mark for blocks per game.
ABOUT THE FALCONS
* The Falcons head to Florida with a 1-1 record on the young season ... after posting a 31-point win at Detroit (68-37, Nov. 10), head coach Curt Miller's squad suffered a narrow overtime loss at Notre Dame (85-81, Nov. 13) in a matchup of two NCAA Tournament teams from a year ago.
* Through two games, all five BG starters are scoring in double digits ... seniors Megan Thorburn and Carin Horne each have 13.5 points per game, while classmate Ali Mann has 12.5 ppg ... junior Kate Achter and senior Liz Honegger have averaged 11.0 and 10.5 ppg, respectively, to date ... Horne leads the team in rebounding, pulling down 7.0 boards per game, while three players - Honegger, Mann and senior Amber Flynn - have 5.0 rpg each ... Achter leads the team with 5.5 assists and 3.5 steals per outing, while Honegger paces the Brown and Orange in blocked shots.
* Flynn has 5.5 ppg, in addition to her 5.0 rpg, off the bench ... junior Whitney Taylor and sophomore Jasmine McCall each have seen action in both games off the bench to date ... Taylor has 5.0 ppg, while McCall is second on the Falcons in both assists (3.0 apg) and steals (2.0 spg) to date.
* BGSU is averaging 74.5 points per game, while allowing 61.0 ... the Falcons are shooting 44.4 percent from the field, and have made 16 three-point field goals in 38 tries (42.1%) ... BG has limited the foes to just a 34.7% field-goal rate and a 25.8% effort from long range (8-for-31 from beyond the arc) ... while BGSU has made more free throws (37) than the opponents have attempted (36), the Falcons have hit just 68.5% of their charity tosses to date, while the opposition has shot 83.3% from the stripe.
* Miller and Company returned all five starters, and nine total letterwinners, from last year's team that finished 28-3 overall and won the MAC with a perfect 16-0 league ledger ... sophomore Lindsey Goldsberry and freshmen Tara Breske, Laura Bugher and Sarah Clapper round out the active roster ... all four players saw action in the UDM game.
* Last year's 28-win total set school and conference records for victories in a season ... BGSU, after winning the league's regular-season title for the second year in a row, went on to win the Kraft MAC Tournament for the second-straight March ... the returning players combined for 92.9 percent of the team's scoring and 90.7% of the Falcons' rebounding total.
FALCONS BY CLASS
THE SENIORS
BGSU's senior class is one of the finest in school history ... that group includes four returning starters in Liz Honegger, Carin Horne, Ali Mann and Megan Thorburn ... additionally, Amber Flynn was one of the most improved players in the MAC last season ... a sixth senior, Julie Gompers, missed each of the last two seasons due to injury and will again be sidelined in 2006-07 ... the class has been an integral part of the Falcons' 73-22 overall mark in the last three-plus years, and BG has advanced to the championship game of the MAC Tournament every year since they arrived.
THE JUNIORS
The Falcons' two juniors, Kate Achter and Whitney Taylor, have helped BGSU win MAC regular-season and tournament titles in each of their first two seasons ... BG has an overall record of 52-12 since the two arrived on campus, and the Falcons are 49-8 when Achter is in the starting lineup.
THE SOPHOMORES
Lindsey Goldsberry and Jasmine McCall have seen their team win over 90 percent of its games, and the two players have never been a part of a loss to a MAC opponent ... McCall played in every game last year, while Goldsberry saw action in 30 of the 31 games, making two starts.
THE FRESHMEN
Tara Breske (Temperance, Mich.), Laura Bugher (Greenwood, Ind.) and Sarah Clapper (Newark, Ohio) join the Falcons for the 2006-07 season ... at Detroit, the three players combined for roughly 20 minutes played, two points and six rebounds in their respective collegiate debuts.
THE FALCONS ARE ...
• 94-57 in the five years (plus two games) since Curt Miller took the BG helm in May of 2001;
• 51-29 in MAC games in that time;
• 73-22 overall and 40-8 in the MAC over the last three-plus seasons, since the current senior class arrived on campus in the fall of 2003;
• 35-5 in the last 40 overall games since February of 2005 (with the losses coming to Kansas State [2005 NCAA Tournament], Delaware, Kentucky, UCLA [2006 NCAA Tournament] and Notre Dame);
• 4-0 in games after a loss during that time;
• 9-1 in the MAC Tournament in the last three seasons;
• 25-0 in the last 25 games against MAC opponents, since a loss at Eastern Michigan on Feb. 19, 2005
• 9-1 in the last 10 road games (with the overtime loss at Notre Dame snapping a nine-game road winning streak since an OT setback at Kentucky last Jan. 2);
• 36-0 when outrebounding the opponent since the start of the 2004-05 season;
• 29-2 when allowing the opponent to score fewer than 70 points since the start of the 2005-06 season (BGSU has only allowed two teams - UCLA and Notre Dame - to top the 70-point mark in the last 33 games);
• 1-1 in games played on Nov. 17 (including one of the worst losses in school history [101-49 to Morehead State in 1979]); and
• 1-0 in games played on Nov. 17 during the Curt Miller Era (more on that in the next note).
WHAT A DIFFERENCE FIVE YEARS MAKES
Friday (Nov. 17) marks exactly five years since Curt Miller's first regular-season game as a collegiate head coach ... the Albany game comes half a decade after a 71-61 win at Youngstown State in Miller's BGSU debut ... the next game after that YSU contest saw BG's top player, Francine Miller, go down with an injury that kept her out for all but two remaining games that season ... another projected starter (Pam Brown) missed virtually that entire year, and BG finished with a 9-19 mark ... Miller's second team, the 2002-03 squad, had an overall record of 12-16 ... the next year, of course, marked the arrival of the current senior class ... that team started 4-4, but rallied to advance all the way to the league tourney championship game, and the rest is history (and is documented in this release, in the media guide and on the web at BGSUFalcons.com).
THOR, GODDESS OF THREE-POINTERS
Senior Megan Thorburn had a night to remember on Monday at Notre Dame ... 'Thor' made her first three three-point field-goal attempts en route to a career night beyond the arc ... she was 5-of-6 on long-range shots, scoring a total of 17 points vs. the Irish ... Thorburn has a team-high six successful treys through just two games this season ... she played a career high 40 minutes in the UND game.
ACHTER STUFFS THE STAT SHEET
Junior Kate Achter had five steals at Notre Dame Monday, tying her career high ... Achter also had a team-high 20 points and a game-high nine assists vs. the Irish ... she missed matching her career best in assists by just one (10 vs. IPFW on Nov. 18, 2005) ... she also had five steals in the '05 MAC Tournament vs. Miami (March 9, 2005).
A FEW MORE NOTES FROM THE NOTRE DAME GAME
Senior Ali Mann played a career-high 43 minutes in the Notre Dame contest ... Mann had played as many as 42 minutes in a game once before, at Saint Francis (Pa.) during her sophomore year (Dec. 18, 2004) • all five starters scored in double figures vs. the Irish, the first time that had happened in nearly 12 months ... BG also had five starters score 10 or more points in last year's game at Detroit (Nov. 30, 2005) • for the first time since February of 2004, BG lost a game after leading with 10 minutes left in the second half ... the Falcons had won 50 such games in a row, since a home loss to Kent State on Feb. 21, 2004 • at UND, the Falcons allowed 85 points for the first time in over two years, since a loss to Ohio State in the Preseason WNIT (89-41; Nov. 12, 2004) • had the game lasted only 40 minutes, the Falcons still would have allowed the most points in almost two years ... BG surrendered 78 points in regulation to the Irish, which would have been the highest opponent total since a track meet at IPFW one week after that Ohio State game (a 115-84 win over the 'Dons on Nov. 19, 2004).
KEEPING IT CLOSE
The Falcons, as mentioned, have lost only five times over the last 40 games ... just two of those setbacks have come by more than four points ... BG lost a 10-point decision to Kansas State in the 2005 NCAA Tournament, then fell to UCLA by 13 in the '06 national tourney ... BGSU has not lost a regular-season game by double digits since Dec. 10, 2004, a 73-43 loss at New Mexico ... on a somewhat-related note, the Falcons have not dropped back-to-back games in a season since late in the 2003-04 campaign (February setbacks to Northern Illinois and Kent State) ... BG did lost the last game of the '03-04 season (MAC Tournament championship to Eastern Michigan) and the first game of '04-05 (the Preseason WNIT contest at Ohio State).
BIG CROWD
The game at Notre Dame marked the fifth largest crowd ever to witness a BGSU women's basketball game ... the attendance at the Joyce Center was announced as 5,746 on Monday ... the largest crowd to see the Falcons play was 9,656, at New Mexico's Lobo Shootout on Dec. 11, 2004 (BG faced Utah State).
MILESTONES MET
A number of Falcon players reached milestones in the Notre Dame game ... senior Liz Honegger, as mentioned, became the school's all-time leader in blocked shots in that contest ... additionally, classmate Ali Mann surpassed the 1,300-point mark for her career, while Honegger ended the game at exactly 1,200 ... senior Carin Horne went past 950 career points in that contest, while junior Kate Achter surpassed 700 career points.
SCOUTING ALBANY
Albany was 0-1 on the young season, heading into a Wednesday night (Nov. 15) game vs. Siena ... the Great Danes lost to visiting La Salle, 77-63, in the season opener on Friday (Nov. 10) ... senior guard Amanda Ward led the team with 18 points, while freshman Britney McGee added 16 in her collegiate debut, going 4-of-7 from three-point land ... last season, UAlbany went 7-21 overall and placed ninth in the America East Conference with a 3-13 league slate ... head coach Trina Patterson welcomed back 10 letterwinners, including four starters, from that club ... Patterson's starting lineup in the opener included Ward and junior Kristin Higy at forward, sophomore Devran Tanacan at center and McGee and junior Sherri Mikus at the guard spots ... Mikus is the top returning scorer, having averaged 8.6 points per game a year ago, while Ward had 8.3 ppg ... Patterson entered the Siena game with a 43-70 record in four-plus years at the helm of the Great Danes ... the school's athletics web site is www.albany.edu/sports.
A QUICK LOOK AT THE REST OF THE FIELD
This weekend's host school, UCF, is 0-2 on the young season, having suffered road losses to Appalachian State (64-44) and Southeastern Louisiana (67-49) ... senior Keunta Miles leads the Golden Knights in scoring, with 13.0 points per game ... head coach Gail Striegler, in her eighth year, returned six letterwinners, including two starters, from last year's team ... that club went 7-21 overall and 5-11 in Conference USA play ... Fairleigh Dickinson is 0-1 after a loss at Manhattan (70-61) to begin the season ... freshman Christy Altamirano had 22 points and 11 rebounds in that game ... eighth-year head coach Sandy Gordon has eight returning letterwinners, including four starters, from last year's 10-18 team ... the Knights went 6-12 in Northeast Conference play in 2005-06 ... UCF's web site is www.UCFathletics.com, while FDU's is www.fduknights.com.
THE SERIES
The Falcons have never met Albany in women's basketball ... in fact, BGSU has never faced either of Saturday's potential opponents, Fairleigh Dickinson or UCF, on the hardwood ... BGSU has played only one game against any of the current America East schools, a home win over UMBC (87-52) on Jan. 15, 1990 ... in addition to Albany, the America East is currently comprised of Binghamton, Boston University, Hartford, Maine, UMBC, New Hampshire, Stony Brook and Vermont.
(More notes can be found in the pdf version of the game notes packet, at the top of this page)
