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Bowling Green State University Athletics
This is Sweet: Falcons to Battle Arizona State in Greensboro, N.C.
March 23, 2007 | Women's Basketball
March 23, 2007 *
GREENSBORO, N.C. - * notes posted on web about a day later than originally hoped, due to internet difficulties at the hotel ... sorry to members of the media for any inconvenience
PHOTO GALLERY FROM FRIDAY'S PRACTICE IN GREENSBORO
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#19/20 BGSU vs. #9/10 ARIZONA STATE
Sat., March 24, 2007 • 12:00 p.m.
Greensboro Coliseum (12,005) • Greensboro, N.C.
RECORDS: BGSU 31-3 [15-1 MAC] // Arizona State 30-4 [16-2 Pac-10]
RADIO: WBGU-FM (88.1) - Paul Braverman and Brian Scullin
TELEVISION: ESPN - Mike Patrick, Doris Burke and Holly Rowe
SERIES: First Meeting
THE GAME
The Bowling Green State University women's basketball team, after a pair of wins in the NCAA Championships, moves on to Greensboro, N.C., for third-round action ... the Falcons of head coach Curt Miller (31-3, 15-1 MAC), a #7 seed in the Greensboro regional, are the first Mid-American Conference team ever to advance to the 'Sweet 16' ... BGSU will meet #3-seeded Arizona State University on Saturday (March 24) at the Greensboro Coliseum (12,005), with tipoff at noon EST ... #1-seed Duke will face #4 Rutgers in the 2:30 p.m. game.
FALCONS IN THE NCAA
BGSU entered 2007 having won one game in the NCAA Championships in program history ... now, the Falcons have won two in a three-day span ... BG is now 3-8 in tourney appearances, with a 1-2 mark in home games and records of 0-4 on the road and 2-2 in neutral-site affairs.
IT'S A FIRST
A helpful suggestion to media folks who are working on stories regarding the Falcons ... you likely cannot go wrong by beginning sentences with "This is the first time Bowling Green has..." ... the Falcons, coming off arguably the biggeset win in the history of the program, have achieved several firsts ... the 2006-07 Falcons are the first Mid-American Conference team ever to advance to the 'Sweet 16' of the NCAA Championships ... BGSU is also the first-ever MAC team - men or women - to win more than 30 games ... this list, of course, is non-comprehensive.
BEST TEAM EVER?
The argument can now be made that the 2006-07 Falcon team is the best in BGSU and MAC women's basketball history ... Curt Miller and Company won the league regular-season and tournament titles for the third-straight season, but one thing had eluded them during that time - a win in the NCAA Championships ... the Falcons suffered first-round losses to Kansas State (70-60) and UCLA (74-61) in the NCAA tourney over the past two years ... this year, however, BGSU posted the program's first NCAA win in 18 years with Sunday's (March 18) 70-66 win over Oklahoma State, then picked up the first second-round win in program history by downing Vanderbilt, 59-56, Tuesday night (March 20).
MAC'S MOST WINS EVER (MEN OR WOMEN)
The 2006-07 Falcons became the first team in Mid-American Conference women's basketball history to win 30 games in a season with the victory over Oklahoma State ... the win over Vanderbilt brings BGSU's record to 31-3 entering the Arizona State contest ... the Falcons had already broken the school and MAC women's basketball records of 28 wins, set by last year's BGSU squad ... now, the Falcons have picked up more wins than the 2001-02 Kent State men's basketball team, which posted 30 wins en route to the 'Elite Eight' of the NCAA Championships.
SENIOR CLASS
The Falcons' win against Vanderbilt gives the team a total of 103 victories since the current senior class arrived at BGSU prior to the 2003-04 season ... that extends the school record for wins in a four-year period ... the old mark was 100 wins, amassed from the 1986-87 through 1989-90 seasons ... this year's senior class - Amber Flynn, Julie Gompers, Liz Honegger, Carin Horne, Ali Mann and Megan Thorburn - has helped the Falcons to a 103-24 record during their four years ... they also have led BG to four 20-win seasons (including one 30-win season), four MAC Tournament championship-game appearances, three MAC regular-season titles, three league tourney crowns, three trips to the NCAA Championships and now, a berth in the 'Sweet 16' of the national tourney.
A BGSU WIN WOULD ...
• extend the Falcons' record run in the 2007 NCAA Championships;
• be the Falcons' fourth-ever victory in the NCAA Championships, and the first third-round win in school and MAC history;
• extend the team's school- and MAC-record season win total to 32 games;
• put the Falcons one win away from a return to Cleveland's Quicken Loans Arena (the site of this year's NCAA Final Four is also the site of the Kraft MAC Tournament);
• be the 104th victory since the current senior class arrived on campus, which would increase the school record for wins in a four-year span.
A BGSU LOSS WOULD ...
• end arguably the most successful season in program and MAC history at 31-4;
• be just the 25th overall loss since the seniors began their BGSU careers.
THE MAC IN THE NCAA
Entering Saturday's game, Mid-American Conference schools have posted a combined record of 7-27 in NCAA tourney play ... prior to BG's win over Oklahoma State, no MAC school had won an NCAA tournament game since 1996, when both Kent State and Toledo picked up first-round wins.
ABOUT THE FALCONS
• The Falcons enter the regional semifinals of NCAA Championships with a 31-3 overall record, and BGSU is riding a six-game winning streak ... three of those wins came in the Kraft MAC Tournament and two more in the national tournament ... BG finished the regular season with a 15-1 MAC slate, and won the conference's overall regular-season title for the third consecutive year ... the Falcons saw an 18-game winning streak snapped with a 70-67 home loss to Ohio on Feb. 24 ... that also broke a string of five consecutive games in which BGSU had scored 85 or more points, including an impressive 89-66 victory at Kent State in the previous game (Feb. 20) ... BGSU got back on track with a 92-62 win over Miami (Feb. 28) to close the regular season, then downed Toledo (71-62; March 6), Eastern Michigan (71-57) and Ball State (67-53) to capture the league tourney crown for the third-straight March ... then, the Brown and Orange opened NCAA Championships action with Sunday's (March 18) 70-66 win over Oklahoma State, and followed that up with a 59-56 win over Vanderbilt two days later ... the Falcons are 12-1 at home, 11-1 in road games and 8-1 in neutral-site contests ... BGSU's only losses have come at Notre Dame in overtime (85-81, Nov. 13); to Duke by only nine points (55-46, Dec. 19) in Cancun, Mexico; and to Ohio ... the loss to Duke (ranked fourth at the time, now the top-ranked team in the nation) snapped a six-game winning streak for Curt Miller's squad ... but, BG bounced back in a big way, as mentioned, with the 18-game win streak prior to the loss to OU, and the Falcons now have won 24 of the last 25 games.
• Four BG players are averaging double digits in scoring, with a fifth falling just short of twin figures ... senior Ali Mann has 15.5 points to lead the way, while junior Kate Achter averages 12.0 points and senior Carin Horne 11.9 ... Achter has 407 total points and Horne 405 this season ... seniors Amber Flynn and Liz Honegger have 10.1 and 9.9 points per outing, respectively ... Mann leads the Falcons in rebounding, with 5.8 per game, while Honegger has 5.4 rpg, Horne 4.5 and Flynn 4.1 ... Achter has a team-high 5.1 assists per contest, and Mann is second with 2.5 apg ... Horne has 1.8 steals per game to rank second on the team, and six of BG's nine active players have at least 1.0 spg, as the Falcons average 10.5 thefts per game ... Honegger paces BG with 1.1 blocked shots per outing, and also has a team-high 64 three-point field goals made (in 168 attempts) this year.
• Flynn is shooting a team-best 59.7 percent from the field, while Mann is shooting 52.6% and Achter 51.1% ... senior Megan Thorburn has 5.8 ppg and a 42.1% three-point FG rate ... she ranks second on the team in that category, trailing only Mann (44.4%) ... Honegger has shot 38.1% from long range ... Horne (54) and Thorburn (48) give the Falcons three players with at least 48 three-point field goals made this season to date.
• Sophomore Lindsey Goldsberry has seen action in 33 games off the bench ... Goldsberry has 4.0 points, 1.9 assists and 2.0 steals per outing ... she leads the team in steals and is third in assists ... junior Whitney Taylor played in nine of the season's first 10 games, averaging 3.1 ppg, but is out for the season due to injury.
• BGSU is averaging 75.1 points per game, while allowing just 56.9 ... the Falcons are shooting 47.8 percent from the field, and have made 240 three-point field goals - 7.06 per game - in 631 tries (38.0%) ... BG has limited the foes to just a 38.6% field-goal rate and a 28.7% effort from long range (154-for-537 from beyond the arc) ... BGSU has made 86 more triples and 141 more free throws than the opponents ... the Falcons have a 71.3% success rate from the free-throw line, while the opposition is also shooting 71.3% from the stripe ... in MAC games, BG averaged 77.4 ppg to the opponents' 56.6, and the Falcons made more free throws (270) than the opposition attempted (236).
• Miller and Company returned all five starters, and nine total letterwinners, from last year's team that finished 28-3 and won the MAC with a perfect 16-0 league ledger ... freshmen Tara Breske, Laura Bugher and Sarah Clapper round out the active roster ... Breske has played in 22 games and Bugher 19 ... Clapper saw action in 13 games, but - like Taylor - is sidelined for the remainder of the season due to an ACL injury.
• Last year's 28-win total set school and conference records for victories in a season (since broken by this year's club) ... BGSU, after winning the league's regular-season title for the second year in a row in 2005-06, 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 a year ago.
HEAD COACH Curt Miller
BGSU head coach Curt Miller has turned the Falcon program around, to say the very least, during his time in Northwest Ohio ... Miller is the first-ever coach to be named MAC Coach of the Year in three consecutive seasons ... additionally, he has been named the Russell Athletic/WBCA Region 4 Coach of the Year in each of the last two seasons ... his career record currently stands at 124-59, in his sixth year ... over the last three-plus seasons, Miller and the Falcons are 103-24 overall ... BGSU has gone 55-9 in MAC regular-season play in that time, and 67-10 in all games vs. league foes during that span (12-1 in league tourney play) ... the 2006-07 Falcons have posted 20 victories for the fourth consecutive season, and have reached the 30-win plateau for the first time in school history.
SCOUTING ARIZONA STATE
Arizona State enters Saturday's game with an overall record of 30-4 ... the Sun Devils finished with a record of 16-2 in Pacific 10 Conference play, and advanced to the championship game of the Pac-10 Tournament before losing to Stanford ... the team has set school single-season records for overall and conference victories ... three of ASU's four losses have come to Stanford this season, with the fourth coming against Tennessee ... the Sun Devils advanced to Greensboro after winning a pair of games in Los Angeles, Calif. ... ASU defeated UC Riverside, 57-50, in the first round, before downing Louisville by a 67-58 count in second-round action ... the Sun Devils rallied from second-half, double-digit deficits in both games ... senior forward Emily Westerberg leads the team with 13.4 points per game, and also has 4.9 rebounds per outing ... sophomore guard Briann January has 10.2 points and a team-leading 4.0 assists per game, while senior forward Aubree Johnson has 9.9 points and 5.8 rebounds ... senior guard Jill Noe (9.1 ppg, 4.9 rpg) and junior guard Reagan Pariseau (4.2 ppg, 2.8 apg) join January, Johnson and Westerberg in the probable starting lineup for coach Charli Turner Thorne ... the school's athletics web site is thesundevils.com.
THE SERIES
The Falcons have never met Arizona State in women's basketball ... BG participated in the Dial Soap Classic in Tempe in December of 1994, but did not meet the host school (Falcons lost to Iowa State before beating Colgate).
BGSU VS. THE PAC-10
The Falcons have an all-time record of 1-12 against Pac-10 Conference teams ... BGSU's lone win came against Washington State, and the Falcons are 1-2 vs. WSU ... the Falcons are 0-1 vs. both Arizona and UCLA, with the latter meeting coming in the first round of last year's NCAA Championships in West Lafayette, Ind. ... that game vs. the Bruins marks both the Falcons' lone NCAA Championships meeting vs. a Pac-10 institution and Curt Miller's only previous game against a Pac-10 school ... in addition to ASU, Bowling Green has never met California, Oregon, Oregon State, Southern California, Stanford or Washington in women's basketball.
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 Arizona State game, that group has combined to make no fewer than 519 starts in their respective Falcon careers to date ... each of the five has started at least 86 games ... Honegger has made a school-record 126 career starts, while Mann has started 125 career contests ... Horne has started 93 games, Achter 89 and Thorburn 86 in their respective BGSU careers.
