Five Score In Double Figures As Falcons Beat Valpo 87-70 In BracketBusters

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Bowling Green, Ohio – The Bowling Green men's basketball team built a 25-point halftime lead and cruised to an 87-70 victory over Valparaiso Saturday in the eighth annual ESPNU BracketBusters series. The Falcons improved to 5-3 all-time in BracketBusters games.

BGSU never trailed, scoring the first nine points and putting together a dominating first-half performance offensively. The Falcons shot 60 percent in the opening 20 minutes and made 3-of-5 three-pointers, while committing just three turnovers. Defensively, Bowling Green held a Valpo team that entered the game averaging just over 73.0 points per game to 24 points on 32 percent shooting. The Falcons forced the Crusaders into bad possessions, picking up 10 steals on 13 Valparaiso miscues in the first half.

Bowling Green made those 10 first-half steals pay off as Bowling Green held a 21-2 advantage in points off of turnovers in the opening half. Many of those came in transition as the Falcons held a 15-0 edge in fastbreak points in the first 20 minutes.

After taking that 9-0 lead, Valpo cut the deficit to five but the Falcons quickly pushed it to double-digits on a Dee Brown lay-up with 12:23 to go to make it 17-6. Joe Jakubowski hit a pair of three-pointers to push the lead to 17 at 25-8 and it blossomed to 20 on a Brown lay-up with 5:01 left to make it 35-15. Brown capped the half with a lay-up with one second remaining for a 49-24 lead.

Bowling Green was not quite as efficient in the second half but the Falcons sat on the 25-point lead and never really allowed Valpo to get back into the game. The Crusaders did cut the deficit to 11 points late but the Orange and Brown made 11-of-12 free-throws down the stretch to post a season-high 87 points, bettering the 83 points the team scored in an overtime loss to Milwaukee early in the season.

Bowling Green finished with a season-high 14 steals, getting four from Scott Thomas and three each from Otis Polk and Jakubowski. The Falcons scored 50 points in the paint for just the second time this year, scoring a season-high 52 despite the fact that Polk, the team's starting center, played less than four minutes in the opening half because of foul trouble.

Brown ended with a game-high 20 points on 7-of-12 shooting and added five assists. Jakubowski had a season-high 19 points and did not have a turnover while playing 38 minutes at the point guard position. He was 4-of-6 from the field and made all three of his three-point attempts and all eight of his free-throw attempts. Erik Marschall added 17 points and Thomas had a double-double with 12 points, 11 rebounds, six assists and four steals. Polk ended with 11 points in just 16 minutes of court time. Marc Larson came off the bench to fill most of those minutes Polk sat, scoring eight points on 4-of-6 shooting in 29 minutes.

Valparaiso falls to 15-15 on the season with the loss and Bowling Green improves to 14-12, including 9-3 in Anderson Arena. The Falcons will close the season with three consecutive conference games beginning with Wednesday's home game against MAC East leader Kent State at 7 p.m.

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