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Bowling Green State University Athletics
Bowling Green State University
EASTERN ILLINOIS
Falcons Gut Out a Win Over Eastern Illinois, 52-48
December 29, 2007 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 29, 2007
Final Stats | Quotes
BGSU-Eastern Illinois boxscore in PDF Format
BGSU's Cumulative Statistics in PDF Format
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio (BGSUFalcons.com) - The Bowling Green State University men's basketball team struggled to find its shooting touch on Saturday night (Dec. 29). But, the Falcons found other ways to get the job done, posting a 52-48 win over Eastern Illinois University. The non-conference game was held at BGSU's Anderson Arena.
With the win, the Falcons improve to 5-6 on the year, while dropping the Panthers to 1-11. BGSU snapped a four-game losing streak.
Junior Nate Miller had a double-double, with 17 points and 14 rebounds, to lead the BGSU cause. Miller tied his career rebounding best.
Freshman Joe Jakubowski very nearly had a double-double of his own, scoring nine points and pulling down a career-high 10 boards.
The Falcons shot a season-low 29.1 percent from the field, making just 16 baskets in 55 attempts. But, BGSU's perseverance on the defensive end, combined with the Falcons' rebounding proclivity, paid dividends on Saturday night. BGSU held Eastern to a similar FG percentage, allowing the Panthers to go just 17-of-57 (29.8%) from the floor. The Brown and Orange also controlled the boards, with a 53-38 rebounding advantage.
Redshirt freshman Chris Knight scored seven points, while sophomores Marc Larson and Otis Polk had six apiece for Louis Orr's Falcons. Larson had a career-high seven rebounds, while Knight grabbed six boards and Polk five. All five of Polk's rebounds came at the offensive end.
For the visitors, Romain Martin scored 20 points, all in the second half. Martin was the only Panthers player in double figures.
The Falcons got off to a slow start in the game, to say the least. BGSU fell behind, 4-0, before Miller hit a jumper to put the home team on the board with over three and a half minutes elapsed. EIU's Ousmane Cisse, who had five rebounds in the game's first 4:09, hit a jumper to give the Panthers a 6-2 lead at the first media timeout of the night.
A Miller free throw cut the Falcons' deficit to three points at the 15:29 mark, but BGSU then would go scoreless for the next 4:39. The Panthers could only score four points during that same stretch, and led by a 10-3 score after a Jake Byrne jumper with 8:34 elapsed.
The Falcons were just 1-for-12 from the field (and 1-for-7 from the free-throw line) to start the game, before Jakubowski took a pass from junior Darryl Clements and hit a three-point field goal. With 10:50 left in the first half, the score was 10-6, Eastern.
Jon'Tee Willhite responded with a putback basket, but that would be Eastern's final basket of the first period. The Falcon defense held the Panthers without a field goal for the final 10:24 of the opening half.
Following Willhite's hoop, the Falcons would go on a 13-0 run to take the lead for good. That run began when Knight made a shot-fake and flipped a pass to Larson, who hit a layup while being fouled. Larson knocked down the free throw to complete the three-point play, and the EIU lead was 12-9.
Miller hit a turnaround jumper at the 9:08 mark, and Polk followed a teammate's miss to grab the rebound and score in one motion. With 8:15 remaining in the opening half, the Falcons had the lead for good.
Following Polk's basket, however, neither team would score for nearly four minutes. The next points of the game did not come until only 4:32 remained in the period.
Those points came after a Willhite miss. Clements grabbed a long defensive rebound, and hit junior Brian Moten with a pass in transition. Moten banked home a running one-hander while being fouled in the process, and made his free throw for a 16-12 BG lead.
A minute later, Knight's three-pointer off a Jakubowski pass gave the Falcons a seven-point advantage. EIU finally broke a streak of over eight minutes without a point (8:10, to be exact), as Gino Myers-Kyles split a pair of free-throw attempts with 2:14 left in the half.
The Falcons scored the final four points of the half, culminating with a Ryan Sims hoop with just 11 seconds left. With BG out and running, Jakubowski fed Sims, and the soph hit a difficult layup while receiving some contact from an Eastern defender. The lead was 10 points, the largest of the game to that point, at the half.
The lead grew to 12 points, the largest of the game, as Miller hit a layup on the opening possession of the second half. The teams traded baskets before Martin began to heat up. The Panthers' leading scorer, after going 0-for-5 in the first half, was 6-for-11 in the second, scoring 20 of his team's 35 second-half points.
Martin's first points came on a jumper with 18:09 left, cutting the Panthers' deficit to 27-17. A three-pointer by Martin put the visitors within seven, and after a Larson layup, Martin hit another trey to make the score 29-23.
The teams each hit a free throw over the next two minutes, before Martin's third trey in just over three minutes cut BGSU's lead to just three points, at 30-27.
With nearly 13 minutes left in the game, Cisse picked up his fourth foul and was forced to the bench. A turnaround jumper by Knight gave BG a 33-27 lead, but another trey from Martin cut that lead in half.
Jakubowski responded with a layup, and Miller's driving baseline jumper gave the hosts a 37-30 advantage with 11:25 on the clock.
Polk grabbed an offensive rebound after a teammate's miss and was fouled. The soph hit both of the resulting free throws to give BG an eight-point lead, 41-33. But, EIU's Julio Anthony threw in a wild running shot as part of a three-point play, and a Billy Parrish jumper with 7:51 left cut the Falcons' lead to 42-38.
A Miller layup was followed by two Knight free throws, and the lead was back to eight points. Again, however, the Panthers would come back. Martin converted an and-one opportunity, and a Willhite jumper at the five-minute mark got the visitors within three points, at 46-43.
The Panthers forced a turnover, but missed a shot on the resulting possession, and Jakubowski was fouled while grabbing the rebound. The freshman hit both free throws for a five-point lead with 4:13 remaining.
Martin hit two tosses of his own out of the game's final media timeout, and neither team would score again for the next 90 seconds. Jakubowski again went ot the line, this time with 2:13 left, and hit two more free throws for a 50-45 advantage.
Martin split a pair of charity tosses with 2:02 left, missing the second. The Panthers got the rebound, but Larson blocked Willhite's follow try, and Miller snared the rebound. After an EIU foul on the next possession, Larson split his free throws with 1:07 remaining.
Anthony was fouled with 56 seconds left, and made both of his tries to cut the BG lead to 51-48. The Falcons worked the clock on the ensuing possession, but a three-point try late in the shot clock would not fall, and EIU got the rebound and called timeout with 17.4 seconds left.
On the resulting possession, the Panthers looked to get the ball to Martin. The EIU sophomore finally got the ball, and fired a three-point try from in front of his team's bench with Clements in his face. The shot was no good, and Miller grabbed the rebound and was fouled with 4.0 seconds left.
Miller missed his first free-throw try, but hit the second to give BG a four-point lead and clinch the victory.
The Falcons struggled from the free-throw line on the night, shooting just 54.5%, but had 19 more tries than the visitors. BGSU had 33 FT attempts for the game, making 18, while the Panthers were 10-of-14 from the stripe.
Byrne scored eight points and Willhite seven for the visitors, while Cisse and Willhite led the Panthers in rebounding, with seven apiece.
Clements paced the Falcons with five assists and two steals, while Jakubowski had three helpers in the game.
The Falcons will continue a season-long three-game homestand with begin the 2008 calendar year with a Wednesday (Jan. 2) game vs. Duquesne. Tipoff is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. at Anderson.
NOTES
* Eastern Illinois scored a total of 48 points, the lowest total by a BGSU opponent in a year and two days, since last season's 58-46 win over Michigan Tech (Dec. 27, 2006) ... the game marked the lowest total the Falcons had allowed a Division-I opponent to score in nearly two calendar years, since a 66-44 win over Central Michigan on Jan. 4, 2006.
* As mentioned, the Falcons held Eastern Illinois without a field goal for the final 10:24 of the first half ... the BG defense forced the Panthers to miss their final 14 field-goal attempts of the half.
* Junior Nate Miller's double-double was his first of the season, but the sixth of his BGSU career ... he leads active Falcons in that category ... Miller now leads the team in scoring, averaging 13.4 points through 11 games.
* No fewer than three Falcons set or tied their career-high totals in rebounding in the win ... Miller had 14 boards to tie his previous BGSU best ... freshman Joe Jakubowski (10 rebounds) and sophomore Marc Larson (seven) each set new career rebounding standards.
* BGSU's +15 rebounding margin was the team's best this season ... the Falcons have outrebounded the opponent in five of this year's 11 games, including in each of the last three.
* Junior Darryl Clements had five assists to tie his career high ... Clements also had five helpers in the Falcons' 2007-08 home opener, vs. Morehead State on Nov. 17.
* Jakubowski and sophomore Otis Polk each made four free throws to set career bests in that category.
* Larson played 29 minutes, the most of his career ... junior Brian Moten played a season-high 28 minutes vs. the Panthers.
* Moten made his first start of the season, replacing redshirt freshman Chris Knight in the lineup ... Knight, who missed several practices leading up to the game due to injury, came off the bench for the first time in his young career and played 21 minutes.
* Miller set a career high with a total of 19 field goals attempted.
* The Falcons had just 10 turnovers, the team's second-lowest total of the season ... BG turned the ball over just six times in the win at Cincinnati on Nov. 11.
* The Falcons now lead Eastern Illinois, 4-0, in the all-time series between the teams ... the other three meetings all came between 1973 and 1976.
* The game was televised by BCSN and will be aired on a tape-delay basis ... according to BCSN's web site, the Toledo station is scheduled to show the game no fewer than seven times -- Saturday night (Sunday morning) at 1:00 a.m., Sunday at 11:00 a.m. and 9:30 p.m., Sunday night (Monday morning) at 3:00 a.m., Monday at 11:30 p.m., Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. and Wednesday at noon.
