Bowling Green State University Athletics
Bowling Green State University
OHIO
Huge Second-Half Start Sends Bobcats Past Falcons, 69-48
February 20, 2008 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 19, 2008
Final Stats
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Coach Orr postgame audio
BGSU-Ohio Boxscore in PDF Format 
ATHENS, Ohio (BGSUFalcons.com) - Host Ohio University opened the second half with a huge run, which broke open a tie game and propelled the Bobcats to a 69-48 win over the Bowling Green State University men's basketball team Tuesday night (Feb. 19). The Mid-American Conference game was held at the Convocation Center.
With the win, the Bobcats improve to 17-9 overall and 8-5 in MAC action, while the Falcons drop to 11-14 and 6-7, respectively.
The teams were tied, 22-22, at halftime, and exchanged buckets early in the second half. But, the 'Cats then scored nine-straight points as part of a 22-3 run, taking a 19-point lead midway through the half.
Jerome Tillman scored 14 points to lead a balanced Ohio attack. Allen Hester and Bubba Walther also were in double digits for the hosts, with 12 and 10 points, respectively.
For the Falcons, junior Nate Miller and freshman Joe Jakubowski scored 12 points apiece.
BGSU made a season-high 11 three-point field goals. However, the Falcons made a total of just five field goals from inside the arc. BG's total of 16 field goals made tied a season low.
Ohio shot 56.7 percent in the second half, making 17-for-30, en route to a 44.1% field-goal rate for the game. The Falcons shot 35.6% on the evening.
Both teams got off to a slow start. Miller hit a putback for the game's first two points, but a Tillman steal of a cross-court pass led to an easy layup and a 4-2 Bobcat lead. Junior Darryl Clements' triple gave the Falcons the lead again, 5-4, with over five minutes gone.
Sophomore Otis Polk, inserted into the game for the first time at the 14:46 mark, blocked a shot attempt by OU's Leon Williams on his first possession in the contest. Polk grabbed the rebound, leading to a three-pointer by junior Brian Moten. When Polk split a pair of free throws at the 13:06 mark, BG had a 9-4 lead.
Walther hit a triple, but sophomore Ryan Sims answered with a straightaway trey, and BG held a 12-7 advantage at the game's second media timeout.
When Jakubowski found himself unguarded at the 10:38 mark, the freshman fired and hit a three-pointer, and BG's lead was eight points, at 15-7. That shot, however, was BG's final basket in seven and a half minutes.
Polk blocked Tillman shot attempts on back-to-back possessions, sandwiched around that Jakubowski trey, to give him three blocks in his first few minutes in the contest.
Justin Orr, nephew of BGSU head coach Louis Orr, hit a transition layup, then fed Tillman for a three-pointer, and the Falcons' lead was down to three points.
Then, back-to-back three-point plays by Allen Hester gave the home team an 18-15 advantage at 6:11.
Neither team would score for over three minutes, before Moten snapped the Bobcats' 11-0 run with a three-ball at the 3:08 mark, tying the game at 18-18. Miller's driving layup off the glass gave BG the lead with 2:39 on the clock.
Walther hit a jumper with 1:05 remaining, but true freshman Jakubowski found redshirt freshman Chris Knight for a layup in traffic. The Bobcats then held for the last shot of the half, with Walther whipping a pass to Tillman for a layup in the final seconds. The teams headed to the lockerroom deadlocked at 22.
In the second half, Williams' basket at 18:52 was answered as Clements rebounded his own miss and hit a layup. But, a Hester triple sparked the 9-0 run and gave the Bobcats the lead for good.
Tillman followed that triple by scoring the next four points, and Michael Allen's steal and breakaway layup gave the hosts a 33-24 lead at the 16:05 mark, prompting a Falcon timeout.
Miller's pull-up jumper cut the lead to seven points with 15:39 remaining, but Williams had a putback, and the Bobcats got three free throws on the same possession to put the lead into double digits for the first time.
Sims split a pair of tosses at the 13:23 mark, but the `Cats scored the next eight points, including three-pointers by Bert Whittington IV and Walther. When Williams made a free throw midway through the half, Ohio's lead was 46-27. The lead got as high as 24 points in the game's late stages.
Moten scored nine points and Sims added seven for the Falcons. Clements scored five points, while Polk added four and tied his career best with four blocked shots.
For the Bobcats, Whittington scored nine points, and Kenneth Van Kempen had seven. BG's Miller had a game-high nine rebounds, while Tillman led the hosts with eight boards. Ohio had a 38-31 margin in that category, including 21-12 in the second half.
The Falcons now step outside of MAC play for the O'Reilly ESPNU BracketBusters. BG will head to the Motor City for a Saturday (Feb. 23) game vs. the University of Detroit Mercy. Tipoff is 4:05 p.m. at Calihan Hall.
NOTES
* Sophomore Otis Polk tied his career high with four blocked shots in the game ... Polk now has 40 blocks this season, tying him for fourth place on the BGSU single-season list ... Kevin Netter had 40 blocks in the 2003-04 campaign ... Polk's next target on the list is third-place Ed Colbert, who blocked 44 shots in 1990-91 ... Cornelius Cash holds the school record, having blocked 59 shots in the 1973-74 campaign.
* Soph Marc Larson blocked one shot vs. the Bobcats, giving him a total of 30 this season ... Larson is tied for 13th on the BG single-season chart.
* Freshman Joe Jakubowski's four three-point field goals made represented the most of his brief career ... he had made three triples on three prior occasions this season.
* BGSU was 6-for-6 from three-point land to end the game ... five of those triples came in the final 3:52.
* Sophomore Matt Karaffa, a first-year walk-on, saw action in his fourth game as a Falcon, playing the final minute and 14 seconds ... Karaffa had the first assist of his BGSU career, with a kick-out to Jakubowski for the freshman's final three-pointer of the night.
* Freshman Cameron Madlock had the second blocked shot and the third assist of his brief career.
* Sophomore Ryan Sims had a season-high seven points, going 2-for-2 from three-point range ... his two triples made also represented a season best.
* The Falcons held Ohio's leading scorer and rebounder, Leon Williams -- who entered the game averaging a double-double -- to just five points and three rebounds in 27 minutes.
