Bowling Green State University Athletics
Falcons Host Youngstown State Saturday Afternoon
December 05, 2008 | Women's Basketball
Dec. 5, 2008
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio (BGSUFalcons.com) -
BGSU vs. YOUNGSTOWN STATE
Saturday, December 6, 2008 • 2:00 p.m.Anderson Arena (4,700) • Bowling Green, Ohio
RECORDS: BGSU 5-2 // Youngstown State 1-5
RADIO: WBGU-FM 88.1 - Mike Castellano and Angelo Velotta
TELEVISION: BCSN - Todd Hostetler and Mark Ehlen
SERIES: BGSU leads, 11-10 // STREAK: BGSU - 1
LAST MEETING: at BGSU 83, Youngstown State 61 (Nov. 30, 2004)
THE GAME
The Bowling Green State University women's basketball team, riding a five-game winning streak, plays an intrastate opponent for the first time this season ... the Falcons of head coach Curt Miller continue a season-long four-game homestand with Saturday's (Dec. 6) game against Youngstown State University ... tipoff is scheduled for 2:00 p.m. at venerable Anderson Arena (4,700) ... the Falcons will not play a game outside the state of Ohio in the entire month of December.
HOLDING THEM UNDER 50
The Falcons held Detroit to just 42 points in Wednesday night's win ... that marked the 30th time that a Curt Miller-coached BGSU squad had held the opponent to fewer than 50 points ... Miller has been the Falcons' coach for seven years and seven games ... prior to his arrival in Northwest Ohio, it had taken 22 seasons to amass 30 such games ... BG teams held the opponents to under 50 points 30 times from 1979-80 to 2000-01.
FALCONS ON THE AIR
• All BGSU women's basketball games are aired on student station WBGU-FM 88.1, the flagship station for Falcon hockey and women's hoops ... Mike Castellano and Angelo Velotta will have the call for Saturday's game vs. YSU.
• In addition to being aired on the FM dial, the games are also available free of charge on the web at BGSUFalcons.com ... to access the broadcasts online, simply click on the 'Stretch Internet' button on the BGSUFalcons.com main page and choose that day's game.
• Additionally, Saturday's game will be televised in the Toledo area by BCSN ... Todd Hostetler and Mark Ehlen are scheduled to call the Falcons' 2008-09 home games ... Ehlen, the former Toledo coach, earned his master's degree from BGSU.
ABOUT THE FALCONS
• The Falcons are 5-2 on the young season ... after opening the year with road losses against Temple and Valparaiso, BGSU has won five-straight games heading into Saturday's Youngstown State game ... the Brown and Orange began the home portion of the regular-season schedule with a 19-point win over Lipscomb (71-52; Nov. 22), and BG picked up a 98-74 win at Saint Francis (Pa.) three days later (Nov. 25) ... then, the Falcons went to Greensboro, N.C., and posted two more double-digit victories at the UNCG Marriott Classic, downing Winston-Salem State (80-43; Nov. 28) and host UNC Greensboro (71-53; Nov. 29) ... BGSU returned home and topped Detroit, 72-42, Wednesday night (Dec. 3) ... senior Lindsey Goldsberry, juniors Niki McCoy and Tara Breske and sophomores Tracy Pontius and Lauren Prochaska each have started all seven games to date.
• Prochaska leads the team in both scoring and rebounding ... the Plain City, Ohio, native has 16.0 points and 6.7 rebounds per contest ... she exploded for a career-high 32 points in the win at Saint Francis ... McCoy had 20 points in both the Lipscomb and Winston-Salem State games ... she is second on the team with 13.4 ppg and 5.3 rpg ... Pontius and Breske are averaging 10.1 and 6.4 points, respectively ... Pontius leads the Falcons in assists, with 4.3 per game, while Breske has 4.1 rpg to rank fourth on the team ... Breske paces the Brown and Orange in blocks (1.3 bpg) and is second in steals (1.7 spg) ... freshman Jessica Slagle has 5.9 ppg, while sophs Chelsea Albert and Jen Uhl have 4.6 and 3.0 ppg, respectively ... Albert is shooting an eye-popping 76.5% from the field, while Uhl has 4.7 rpg and 1.1 bpg, ranking third in rebounding and second in blocks.
• The Falcons are shooting 43.6% from the field over the first seven games ... BG has a three-point FG pct. of 36.6%, with 7.6 triples made per game, and are shooting 77.5% from the free-throw line ... the opponents are shooting 39.0% from the floor, 33.0% from long range and 65.2% from the stripe ... the Falcons have outrebounded the foes by nearly boards per game (36.7 to 35.0) ... BG has turned the ball over 18.6 times per game, but has forced the opponents into 21.3 per outing.
• The Falcons have made almost twice as many free throws (110) as the opponents (58) ... in fact, BGSU has made 21 more FTs than the foes have attempted (89).
• The Falcons returned a total of nine letterwinners, including three starters, from last season's team ... the group of returnees combined for 65.9 percent of the scoring and 75.0% of the rebounding from last year's 26-8 team ... BGSU won the MAC's regular-season title for the fourth consecutive year, posting a 13-3 conference record ... the Falcons advanced to the semifinals of the MAC Tournament before falling in double overtime ... Goldsberry, the team's lone senior, is one of the three returning starters from the '07-08 club ... Breske and Prochaska are the other two.
• Sophs Albert, Pontius and Uhl each played in all 34 games last year, with Albert making six starts ... the list of returning letterwinners also includes juniors Laura Bugher and Sarah Clapper and sophomore Kelly Zuercher ... McCoy is in her first playing season with the Falcons ... she sat out the 2007-08 season after transferring from the University of Akron.
• Three freshmen joined the Brown and Orange this year ... that group includes Maribeth Giese, Slagle and Victoria McGowan ... two other newcomers have come into the Falcon fold ... transfers Maggie Hennegan (Saint Louis Univ.) and Tamika Nurse (Univ. of Oregon) will sit out this season before joining the active roster in 2009-10 ... Nurse will have one season of eligibility, while Hennegan has two.
COACH 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 four consecutive seasons ... in fact, no coach had captured the award in as many as three-straight years ... additionally, he was named the Russell Athletic/WBCA Region 4 Coach of the Year in both the 2005-06 and '06-07 seasons ... his career record currently stands at 155-70, in his eighth year ... since the start of the 2003-04 season, Miller and the Falcons are 134-35 overall, 68-12 in MAC regular-season play, and 81-14 in all games vs. league foes during that span (13-2 in league tourney play) ... the 2007-08 Falcons became the fifth-straight BGSU team to post at least 20 victories, and Miller's 2006-07 club went 31-4, for the most wins in a season by a MAC basketball team, male or female ... that team was the first MAC women's team to advance to the NCAA's "Sweet Sixteen" ... a native of Girard, Pa., Miller began his collegiate coaching career as a volunteer assistant at Kent State, and was an assistant at Cleveland State and Syracuse ... he was the associate head coach at Colorado State under Tom Collen (a BGSU graduate and currently the head coach at Arkansas), helping the Rams to a combined 81-20 mark in his three years there ... in the last decade (plus seven games), Miller has been on the staffs of teams that have combined to go 236-90 (.724).
LAST TIME OUT
Sophomore Tracy Pontius scored a career-high 16 points as the Falcons led from wire to wire in a 30-point victory over Detroit ... junior Niki McCoy had 13 points for the home team, while senior Lindsey Goldsberry rounded out BGSU's double-digit scorers, with a season-high 10 points ... Pontius and Goldsberry ranked one-two in both assists and steals for the hosts ... Sandi Brown led the visitors with 11 points and nine assists, but had a game-high 10 turnovers on the evening ... the Falcons forced the visitors into 26 turnovers in the game ... soph Chelsea Albert had nine points off the bench, shooting a perfect 1.000 from the field for the third time in the last four games ... Albert made all three of her field goal attempts on the night ... the Falcons scored the first nine points of the game ... UDM battled back to within three points, at 14-11, but three three-point field goals - two by Pontius and one by sophomore Lauren Prochaska - in a span of just over two minutes gave the Brown and Orange a 10-point lead, 23-13, with 9:03 left in the half ... a Titan triple briefly cut the lead to seven points, but UDM would draw no closer ... BG scored the last six points of the first half to take a 34-18 lead at the intermission, and used another 9-0 run early in the second period to extend the lead to 43-20 ... the hosts shot 41.1 percent from the field, and hit 12-of-30 three-pointers (40.0%).
SCOUTING YSU
Youngstown State is 1-5 on the season, heading into Saturday's game at Anderson ... the Penguins are coming off an overtime loss to Saint Francis (Pa.), 61-54, on Wednesday night (Dec. 3) ... YSU dropped the first three games of the year, including contests against MAC schools Kent State and Buffalo, before picking up a 67-60 win over Weber State in a neutral-site game in Pittsburgh, Pa. ... YSU is 0-2 in true road games this year, falling at KSU and Pittsburgh ... individually, senior forward Tiara Scott leads the team in scoring, with 10.2 points per game ... she also has 5.5 rebounds per outing ... senior center Nikita LaFleur has 8.8 ppg and a team-high 8.8 rpg, and is shooting a team-best 55.9% from the field ... freshman guard Macey Nortey and junior guard Jaquetta Westley each have 6.5 ppg ... Nortey paces the Penguins in both assists and steals ... Nortey, Scott and senior guard Kelsey Gurganus (4.7 ppg) each have started all six games to date, while Westley has made five starts and LaFleur four ... those five players comprised the starting lineup for the SFU game ... last year, the Penguins went 14-17 overall and 8-10 in Horizon League play ... first-year head coach Cindy Martin inherited six letterwinners, including two starters, from last year's club ... the school's athletics web site is YSUsports.com.
THE SERIES
The Falcons lead Youngstown State, 11-10, in the all-time series between the teams, and BGSU won the most recent meeting ... the Falcons picked up an 83-61 win at Anderson Arena just over four years ago (Nov. 30, 2004) ... BG is 7-5 in home games vs. the Penguins, and the Falcons have won five of the last six series meetings at Anderson.
THE FALCONS ARE ...
• 155-70 in the seven years (plus seven games) since Curt Miller took the BGSU helm in May of 2001;
• 79-33 in MAC games in that time:
•146-51 in the six-plus years since Miller's assistant coaches have all been in place (associate head coach Jennifer Roos and assistant coach Brandi Poole have been on Miller's staff since his first year; assistant Kevin Eckert joined the staff one year later);
• 134-35 over the last five-plus years, with at least 20 wins in five-straight seasons;
• a staggering 113-25 in the past four-plus years, with no fewer than 23 wins in each year and a MAC regular-season title in every season;
• 90-17 overall and 44-4 in the MAC in the last three-plus years, since senior Lindsey Goldsberry ventured to Northwest Ohio;
• 62-14 in the last two-plus years, including a 28-4 conference ledger;
• 13-2 in the MAC Tournament over the last four years, with three titles (2005, '06 and '07) and a trip to the semifinals in 2008;
• 20-2 in non-conference home games since the start of the 2003-04 season;
• 16-1 against non-league opposition at Anderson Arena since November of 2004;
• 5-4 in December 6 games in program history;
• 5-0 in the last five games on that date, including wins over Michigan State and Indiana at Anderson Arena; and
• 4-0 in Dec. 6 games in the Curt Miller Era, with home wins over IPFW (2003), Duquesne ('04) and IU ('06) after a road victory against Florida Atlantic ('02).
HOME COOKIN'
The Falcons' win over Detroit Wednesday (Dec. 3) gives BGSU a modest four-game winning streak in non-conference home games ... BG, however, has won 16 of the last 17 such games, with last year's overtime loss to Notre Dame (86-84; Dec. 5, 2007) the only such setback since mid-December of 2003.
A DECEMBER HOMESTAND?
Believe it or not, the Falcons will be home for nearly all of December ... after playing five of November's six games on the road, BGSU will not leave the state of Ohio for the entire month of December ... Wednesday's (Dec. 3) win over Detroit began a stretch which sees the Falcons play four consecutive contests at "The House That Roars," culminating with a Dec. 21 game against Hartford ... BG played just one December home game a year ago ... the Falcons' total of four non-league home games in the same month is the most since December of 1990, when Fran Voll's final BGSU team played five non-league contests at Anderson Arena ... and, BG's four-game homestand is the team's longest since February of 2000.
SKEET SHOOTING
• Sophomore Tracy Pontius set a new career best with 16 points in the win over Detroit ... Pontius has set or tied her career scoring high four times in the Falcons' seven games.
• Pontius also set career standards for field goals made (five), steals (four) and three-point field goals made (four) in the win over UDM, and she had the first blocked shot of her BG career ... with 14 three-point field goals made and 30 assists this year, Pontius already has topped her totals for all of last season.
A FEW MORE FALCON NOTES
• Junior Sarah Clapper scored a season-high six points in Wednesday's win ... she also had season-best totals in rebounds (four), assists (three) and three-point field goals made (two), tying her career standards in the latter two categories.
• Sophomore Chelsea Albert was perfect from the field for the third time in the last four games, going 3-for-3 from the floor against UDM ... Albert is now shooting 76.5% on the year, having gone 13-of-17 from the floor ... over the last four contests, she has made 12 shots in 14 attempts, for a success rate of 85.7%.
• Sophomore Kelly Zuercher has scored 13 points over her last two games, matching her total for all of last season ... she scored a career-high eight points, going 3-for-3 from the field in the win over Winston-Salem State ... then, Zuercher had five points in the UDM game, including the first three-pointer of her career ... Zuercher's previous career best had been four points at Toledo last Feb. 2 ... she is shooting 5-for-8 from the field this year to date, after making three FG during the entire 2007-08 campaign.
• Soph Jen Uhl had a blocked shot in the win over Detroit, giving her eight blocks in seven games this year ... Uhl is just one block away from matching her total for her entire freshman year.
MILLER ON THE RADIO
BGSU head coach Curt Miller is scheduled to appear every other week on the Falcons' Nest Coaches Show, which airs live each Monday at 6:00 p.m. at the Bowling Green Frickers' restaurant ... Miller is scheduled to appear on the second half of the show (approx. 6:30 p.m.) on the following dates: Dec. 15, Jan. 5, Jan. 19, Feb. 2, Feb. 16 and March 2 ... there will be no show on Dec. 22 due to the men's basketball team's home game that night.
