Bowling Green State University Athletics
Falcons Host Oakland Wednesday
November 28, 2006 | Women's Basketball
BGSU vs. OAKLAND
Wed., November 29, 2006 • 7:00 p.m.
Anderson Arena (4,700) • Bowling Green, Ohio
RECORDS: BGSU 4-1 (28-3 in 2005-06) // Oakland 2-3 (15-16 in '05-06)
RADIO: WBGU-FM (88.1)
TV: BCSN - Dave Horger and Fran Voll
SERIES: Oakland leads, 3-2
LAST MEETING: BGSU 72, at Oakland 59 (Dec. 22, 2005)
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - The Bowling Green State University women's basketball team, fresh off a win over a defending conference champion, plays a second-straight game against a team that advanced to last year's NCAA Tournament ... the Falcons of head coach Curt Miller, the two-time defending Mid-American Conference regular-season and tournament champions, continue a three-game homestand with a Wednesday (Nov. 29) game vs. Oakland University ... tipoff is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. at venerable Anderson Arena (4,700) ... BGSU has won 19-straight home games and 38 of the last 43 overall contests.
SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE
After Friday's (Nov. 24) win over defending Atlantic 10 Conference champion Temple, the Falcons have won 19 consecutive games at Anderson Arena ... in non-conference play, BGSU has won the last seven home games and 10 of the last 11 ... Oakland is the only non-MAC opponent to pick up a win at Anderson during that time, with a 70-63 win on Dec. 13, 2003 ... in fact, BGSU is 0-2 all-time in home games vs. the Pioneers/Golden Grizzlies.
TOUGH CROWD
The Falcons' non-conference schedule is one of the toughest in school history ... the Temple game began a stretch in which seven of eight games are against teams that won 20 games last year and/or advanced to national postseason play ... that includes all five of BGSU's home non-league games ... of the three opponents on the current homestand, Temple is the defending Atlantic 10 champion, while Oakland advanced to the NCAA Tournament last year and Indiana made it to the quarterfinal round of the WNIT.
ABOUT THE FALCONS
• The Falcons enter the Oakland game with a 4-1 record on the young season ... the first three BGSU wins each came by over 30 points ... after posting a 68-37 win at Detroit (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 ... then, however, BGSU picked up wins over Albany (76-40) and Fairleigh Dickinson (87-56) in the UCF Tournament, before opening the home slate with Friday's (Nov. 24) 86-67 win over Temple.
• Through five games, no fewer than six BG players are averaging at least 9.4 points per game, with four scoring in double digits ... senior Ali Mann has 16.0 points to lead the way, while junior Kate Achter (11.8 ppg) and seniors Carin Horne (11.0) and Liz Honegger (10.6) all are averaging between 10.6 and 11.8 ppg to date ... Achter has team-high averages of 5.2 assists and 1.8 steals (tied for team lead) per game, while Honegger leads BG with 1.8 blocked shots per outing.
• Senior Megan Thorburn is averaging 9.4 points per game, and has made 12 three-point field goals to tie Honegger for the BG lead ... senior Amber Flynn has 9.4 ppg off the bench, and she leads the Brown and Orange with 6.0 rebounds per game ... Horne has 5.8 rpg and Honegger 4.8.
• In addition to Flynn, junior Whitney Taylor and sophomore Jasmine McCall each have seen action in all five games off the bench ... Taylor has 4.8 ppg, while McCall is second on the Falcons in assists (2.6 apg) and tied for the team lead in steals (1.8 spg) to date.
• Through five games, BGSU is averaging 79.6 points per game, while allowing just 57.0 ... the Falcons are shooting 51.1 percent from the field, and have made 40 three-point field goals - 8.00 per game - in 90 tries (44.4%) ... BG has limited the foes to just a 35.6% field-goal rate and a 27.6% effort from long range (21-for-76 from beyond the arc) ... BGSU has made nearly as many free throws (82) as the opponents have attempted (90), but the Falcons have hit just 67.2% of their charity tosses to date, while the opposition has shot 71.1% 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 ... Goldsberry has played in four games, while the three frosh each have seen action in three.
• 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.
HORNE APPROACHING 1,000-POINT MARK ...
Senior Carin Horne is rapidly moving up the BGSU career scoring list, and is making her bid to be the Falcons' next player to reach the 1,000-point mark ... during the UCF Tournament, Horne moved into 21st place on the school career list, and she now has 979 points ... simple math would prove that Horne is just 21 points shy of the millennium mark.
... LOOKING TO JOIN MILLENNIUM FALCONS MANN, HONEGGER
Horne is looking to join an exclusive group that currently includes only 20 players in the history of Falcon women's basketball ... that group includes a pair of Horne's teammates ... Last Jan. 7, Ali Mann became just the 19th player in school history to reach the 1,000-point mark for her career, and only the sixth to hit the millennium mark prior to her senior season ... Mann currently has a career total of 1,363 points, tying her for ninth on the school list ... last Jan. 28, Liz Honegger scored her 1,000th career point, becoming only the 20th player (seventh prior to her senior year) to do so ... Honegger moved up two notches on the list during the trip to Florida, and now has 1,232 points to rank 12th ... and, don't look now, but Kate Achter - after just over two seasons - already has 738 points during her BGSU career.
LAST TIME OUT
Junior Kate Achter was perfect from the field, and Achter and her BGSU teammates shot over 60 percent from the floor for the second consecutive game ... it all added up to an 86-67 win over Temple in Friday's (Nov. 24) home opener ... Achter was 8-of-8 from the field en route to a 23-point night, while senior Ali Mann also scored 23 points, on 8-of-10 shooting ... for the Owls, Fatima Maddox had a game-high 24 points, while Toledo native Kamesha Hairston had 22 points and a game-best seven rebounds, and scored her 1,000th career point in the game ... Amber Flynn and Carin Horne scored 12 and 10 points, respectively ... the game's first 10 minutes featured four lead changes, as neither team led by more than three points ... a basket by Mann at the 9:53 mark gave the hosts the lead for good, and an 11-0 BGSU run gave the Falcons a 35-22 advantage ... BG shot 64.3% from the floor in the opening half, with Flynn hitting two three-pointers - the second and third treys of her career - in that half ... the Falcons got the lead over 20 points early in the second half, and the Owls could not get closer than 13 points the rest of the night ... Lindsey Goldsberry had a well-rounded game, with five points, four rebounds and three steals off the bench, and the sophomore did a little bit of everything during BG's 11-0 run.
MANN NAMED MAC PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Senior Ali Mann was named a MAC Player of the Week after her performance at the UCF Golden Knights Tournament on Nov. 17-18 ... Mann averaged a team-best 16.0 points per game in just 24 minutes per contest in lopsided wins over Albany and Fairleigh Dickinson ... Mann averaged 3.5 rebounds per game, and shot a sizzling 76.5 percent from the field (13-for-17) in the two wins ... for Mann, the league P-O-W honor was the sixth of her career.
A VETERAN STARTING LINEUP
BGSU's starting lineup features four seniors - Liz Honegger, Carin Horne, Ali Mann and Megan Thorburn - as well as a junior, Kate Achter ... entering the Oakland game, that group has combined to make no fewer than 374 starts in their respective Falcon careers to date.
MORE ON THE START CHART
As mentioned, the five BGSU starters have combined to make a total of 374 starts in the Brown and Orange ... two members of that group, seniors Liz Honegger and Ali Mann, are moving onto the individual career list for games started ... Honegger has made 97 career starts, while Mann has started 96 games ... Honeger is now tied with Angie Bonner (1987-90) for sixth place on that list ... Jackie Motycka (1985-89) holds the school record with 115 starts, a record that both Honegger and Mann have a chance to break before the year is out.
SCOUTING OAKLAND
Oakland enters the BGSU game with a 2-3 record on the young season ... the Falcons mark the third consecutive MAC opponent for the Golden Grizzlies ... OU picked up a win on the road at Eastern Michigan last week (Nov. 22), 68-62, but then lost at Central Michigan by a 69-57 count on Sunday (Nov. 26) ... the team opened the season with a home win over Marygrove College before dropping road games to to UW-Green Bay and Florida State ... the latter setback came by just five points, 74-69 ... individually, senior forward Nicole Piggott leads the team in both scoring and rebounding, with 16.8 points and 7.0 boards per game ... freshman forward Hanna Reising (14.2 ppg) and sophomore guard Jessica Pike (13.4 ppg) also have double-digit scoring averages through the first five games ... senior guard Bonnie Baker (5.0 ppg, 4.6 assists per game) and sophomore guard Riikka Terava (3.5 ppg in two games) joined Piggott, Pike and Reising in the starting lineup vs. CMU for head coach Beckie Francis ... last season, the Grizzlies went 15-16 overall and tied for fifth in the Mid-Continent Conference with a record of 8-8 ...but, OU then proceeded to win the conference tournament and advance to the NCAA Championships ... Francis welcomed back seven letterwinners, including three starters, from that team ... Francis, in her second stint at the OU helm, has a record of 107-72 in her seventh overall year with the team ... the school's athletics web site is www.ougrizzlies.com.
THE SERIES
The Falcons trail Oakland, 3-2, in the all-time series between the teams, and BGSU is 0-2 in home games vs. the Pioneers/Golden Grizzlies ... OU, as mentioned earlier, is the last non-conference team to escape Anderson Arena with a win, having downed the Falcons by a 70-63 count three years ago (Dec. 13, 2003) ... last year in Rochester, the Brown and Orange posted a 72-59 win in the final game before Christmas (Dec. 22, 2005) ... Falcon head coach Curt Miller has a 2-1 record vs. the Grizzlies.
HOMECOURT ADVANTAGE
BGSU went a perfect 11-0 in home games last season ... after downing Temple Friday (Nov. 24), the Falcons have won 19 consecutive games at Anderson Arena ... BG's homecourt winning streak is now the third longest in the nation.
HEAD COACH Curt Miller
BGSU head coach Curt Miller has been named the MAC Coach of the Year in each of the last two seasons, and was the 2006 Russell Athletic/WBCA Region Four Coach of the Year as well ... his career record currently stands at 97-57, in his sixth year ... over the last three-plus seasons, Miller and the Falcons are 76-22 ... BGSU has gone 40-8 in MAC regular-season play in that time, and 49-9 in all games vs. league foes during that span (9-1 in league tourney play).
THE FALCONS ARE ...
• 97-57 in the five years (plus five games) since Curt Miller took the BG helm in May of 2001;
• 51-29 in MAC games in that time;
• 76-22 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;
• 38-5 in the last 43 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);
• 5-0 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 (the Falcons won the final three regular-season games of 2004-05, then won three-straight games in the MAC Tournament, before going 16-0 in league regular-season play and winning three more conference tourney contests in '05-06);
• 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);
• 39-0 when outrebounding the opponent since the start of the 2004-05 season;
• 32-2 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 36 games);
• 3-4 in games played on Nov. 29 (including a 2-0 mark in home games on that date);
• 1-1 in games played on Nov. 29 during the Curt Miller Era (including a win in the only home game on that date in program history, an 73-57 triumph over IPFW on Nov. 29, 2001); and
• 0-1 in games played on Nov. 29 against a team with Miller on the coaching staff (a 71-67 loss to Syracuse on Nov. 29, 1998).
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' 76-22 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 55-12 since the two arrived on campus, and the Falcons are 52-8 when Achter is in the starting lineup.
THE SOPHOMORES
Lindsey Goldsberry and Jasmine McCall have seen their team win nearly 90 percent of its games (32-4 to date), and the two players have never been a part of a loss to a MAC opponent ... McCall has played in all 36 of BGSU's games in her career to date, while Goldsberry has action in 34 contests, 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 ... in the Detroit game, the three players combined for roughly 20 minutes played, two points and six rebounds in their respective collegiate debuts.
KATE IS EIGHT-FOR-EIGHT
Junior Kate Achter was a perfect 8-for-8 from the field in the win over Temple, matching her career best for field goals made ... Achter had one previous 8-for-8 game in her BG tenure, in a home win over Youngstown State during her freshman year (Nov. 30, 2004) ... that YSU contest was the first home game of her collegiate career ... in that contest, just as in the Temple game, Achter finished with 23 points.
SHE DISHES IT OUT, TOO
In the Temple game, junior Kate Achter recorded her 300th career assist ... she is just the eighth player in school history to reach that milestone.
IN THE HOME OPENER
The Falcons now have a record of 23-10 all-time in home openers (locations of 1973-74 games are unknown) ... that includes a 4-2 mark since Curt Miller assumed the helm of the BGSU program ... after dropping the home-opening game in each of Miller's first two seasons, the Falcons have won each of the last four ... BGSU has won 16 of the last 19 home openers.
A MODEL OF CONSISTENCY
Senior Ali Mann scored 23 points in the Temple game, tying for team honors ... Mann, who has played in 98 games as a Falcon, now has scored in double digits in 75 career contests ... Mann, the lone Falcon to score 10 points or more in all five games, has hit double figures in 12-straight games dating to last season.
SHOOTING THE LIGHTS OUT
BGSU has shot over 60 percent from the field in the last two games, shooting 61.2% vs. Temple after a 62.3% success rate in the Fairleigh Dickinson games ... vs. FDU, BG made 11 of the team's first 12 shots from the field, scoring 30 points in the game's first 7:05 ... BGSU shot 75.0 percent from the field in the opening 20 minutes vs. the Knights, a school record for field-goal percentage in a half ... the Falcons have shot a combined 69.6% in the opening half of the last two contests.
FLYNN-TASTIC
Senior Amber Flynn has scored 12 points off the bench in each of the last three games ... Flynn entered that three-game stretch with a career total of five double-digit scoring games ... she entered the Temple game with a total of one three-point field goal made, but hit a pair of triples in the first half vs. the Owls ... her lone prior three-ball came in last year's win over Eastern Michigan (Feb. 1, 2006).
GOOD AS GOLDS
Sophomore Lindsey Goldsberry tied her career high in no fewer than five categories vs. Temple, with two field goals made, three assists, three steals, four rebounds and 29 minutes played ... her previous mark for steals had been set the previous weekend, as she had three thefts vs. Albany.
GOOD AS GOLDS II
Lindsey Goldsberry had a well-rounded statistics line on Friday night vs. Temple ... during the Falcons' 11-0 run late in the first half, she displayed her versatility with a defensive rebound, an assist, a shot-fake followed by a jumper from the left baseline, steals on back-to-back TU possessions, an offensive rebound and yet another steal ... that came in a span of less than three minutes.
SPEAKING OF THAT RUN...
The Falcons' 11-0 run vs. Temple means that BGSU has had at least one run of 10 points or more in each of the season's first five games ... BGSU reeled off 16-straight points at Detroit, a run that was larger than any the Falcons had during all of the 2005-06 season ... and, BG had first-half runs of 10-0 and 11-0 at Notre Dame, along with 10-0 first-half runs vs. both Albany and FDU.
