Falcons Head West to End Non-Conference Schedule

Thursday, December 29

Laramie, WY

7:00 PM MT

Bowling Green State University

Wyoming

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Freshman Logan Pastor & the Falcons face Wyoming on Thursday night (Brandon Heiss, BGSU Marketing & Communications)

December 27, 2011 | Women's Basketball

BGSU meets Wyoming on Thursday night

By: BOWLING GREEN, Ohio (BGSU Athletic Communications)

The Bowling Green State University women's basketball team heads westward to conclude both the 2011 calendar year and the '11-12 non-conference schedule ... the Falcons of head coach Curt Miller play two games in three days, beginning with a Thursday (Dec. 29) contest vs. the University of Wyoming ... tipoff is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. locally (9:00 p.m. Eastern) at Arena Auditorium ... BG will head to Fort Collins, Colo., for a Saturday (Dec. 31) game vs. Colorado State University before returning home.

BGSU NOTES | WYOMING NOTES
LIVE STATS | LIVE VIDEO * | LIVE AUDIO
2012 NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS AT THE STROH CENTER
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QUICK HITS
• The Falcons, after seeing a seven-game winning streak snapped with a 49-47 loss at Creighton (Dec. 18), bounced back in a big way ... BGSU posted a 91-41 victory over Madonna on Wednesday (Dec. 21), in the team's final game before the holidays ... sophomore Noelle Yoder (14) and redshirt junior Danielle Havel (13) each tied their career scoring high, and a total of nine BG players scored at least six points in the win.

• BGSU will be meeting both Wyoming and Colorado State for the first time in women's basketball ... the Cowgirls and Rams will be the third and fourth first-time opponents, respectively, for the Falcons this season.

• BG has gone 2-0 against first-time foes this season to date, winning those two games by an average of 40 points ... the Falcons had never met Jacksonville (83-53 win on Dec. 11) or Madonna prior to the 2011-12 season.

• The Falcons had a season-high point total vs. Madonna, and BG also posted a season-best total in assists, with 25 ... the Brown and Orange had 15 assists on 16 second-half baskets.

• BGSU had a whopping 60 rebounds to Madonna's total of 27, marking the sixth-straight game that the Falcons had held the advantage on the boards ... BG had been outrebounded in each of the season's first five games ... the Falcons are 5-1 this season and 144-14 in the Miller Era when outrebounding the opponent.

• The Falcons' total of 60 rebounds in that Madonna game was the program's highest in over seven years, since BG had 64 boards in a win at IPFW on Nov. 19, 2004 ... BGSU won that game by a 115-94 final in Fort Wayne, Ind.

• BGSU's 50-point margin of victory vs. MU was the team's largest in nearly nine years, since an 89-39 win over Savannah State on Dec. 22, 2002 ... the school record is a 58-point victory (94-36) over Taylor in the 1981-82 season.

• After going with the same starting lineup for the first 10 games of the year, Miller made a change for the Madonna game ... freshman Jasmine Matthews joined Havel, senior Jessica Slagle, junior Chrissy Steffen and redshirt sophomore Alexis Rogers in the starting five vs. the Crusaders.

• Matthews became the first freshman to start a game for BGSU in four seasons ... then-freshmen Lauren Prochaska and Crystal Murdaugh each started all 34 games in 2007-08, while Chelsea Albert made six starts that season.

• Last season, the Falcons had a total of 242 steals, averaging 7.3 per game ... this year, BGSU already has 130 steals through 11 games, for an average of 11.8 per contest ... BG is averaging nearly 12 thefts per game after posting a total of 12 steals only once in 33 games last winter.

• The Falcons shot 44.6 percent from the field vs. Madonna, while holding the Crusaders to just a 29.8% success rate ... BGSU is 7-0 this season and 68-0 in the last three-plus seasons when posting a better FG percentage than the opponent ... the Falcons are 24-20 when the opposition has a higher field-goal rate during that time.

• Madonna became the third opponent this season, and the second in three games, to shoot less than 30 percent from the floor against the Falcon defense ... BG held Detroit to just a 27.7% field-goal rate, and the Falcons let Jacksonville shoot just 29.2%.

• BGSU's three true sophomores, Jillian Halfhill, Jill Stein and Yoder, all have topped their scoring totals for all of last season ... Halfhill has 75 points this year after scoring a total of 25 points last winter ... Stein, who scored 30 points a season ago, has 39 in 2011-12 to date ... and, Yoder has an even 50 points this season after scoring 21 as a freshman.

• Yoder made a total of four three-point field goals during her freshman year, going 4-of-15 from long distance ... she matched that total in the Madonna game alone, hitting a career-high four treys in seven tries ... on the season, Yoder is 10-of-29 from long distance, and she is tied for second on the team in three-pointers made.

• Junior Simone Eli had six points vs. Madonna to double her previous career high ... in fact, Eli matched her previous best for an entire season ... she had six points as a freshman in 2009-10 before scoring five points last fall ... her six points vs. MU came on a pair of three-point field goals just 32 seconds apart.

• Miller and his staff returned nine letterwinners – but just one starter – from last year's 28-5 team ... Steffen, the lone returning starter, was chosen to the Preseason All-MAC Team.

• Not only is Steffen the lone returning starter, she was the only player on the BGSU roster to have started even one collegiate game prior to the 2011-12 season opener at Dayton ... that group included Halfhill, Havel, Rogers and Slagle ... the quartet joined Steffen in the starting lineup for each of the first 10 games, before Matthews drew a starting assignment vs. Madonna.

WAYS TO FOLLOW BGSU-WYOMING
If you can't make it to Laramie for Thursday night's game, there are a number of ways to follow the Falcons ...
• RADIO/AUDIO STREAM: The game – like every game on the 2011-12 schedule – can be heard on the radio at WBGU-FM 88.1, and the audio stream will be available, free of charge, at BGSUFalcons.com.
• LIVE STATS: Live stats will be accessable through BGSUFalcons.com or through UW's web site, www.wyomingathletics.com.
• VIDEO STREAMING: Live video streaming will also be available, through Wyoming's web site ... the link can be accessed at www.wyomingathletics.com, and will also be available through BGSUFalcons.com ... there will be a subscription fee required to view the video streaming for Thursday's game.
The links to the audio, video and stats can be found at BGSUFalcons.com, in the 'schedule' section on the home page, or by accessing the women's basketball schedule and choosing the Wyoming game.

ABOUT THE FALCONS
• The Falcons enter the Wyoming game with a record of 8-3 on the season ... BGSU lost a 69-38 decision at Dayton in the opener on Nov. 11, but the Brown and Orange opened the Stroh Center Era by very nearly knocking off nationally-ranked Purdue (Nov. 17) ... the #16/20 Boilermakers escaped with a 54-53 win.

• The Falcons then got into the win column with a 71-54 home victory over Evansville (Nov. 20), and BG posted victories over Detroit, Western Kentucky, Butler, Youngstown State, Austin Peay and Jacksonville, for a seven-game winning streak ... all but the UDM and YSU games came at the Stroh ... six of the seven wins during that streak came by double-digit margins, including three wins by over 20 points ... the Falcons beat APSU and Jacksonville by a combined 64 points.

• Creighton snapped the Falcons' seven-game winning streak with a 49-47 victory over the Brown and Orange in Omaha (Dec. 18), but the Brown and Orange returned home and posted a 91-41 victory over Madonna (Dec. 21) ... BGSU is 6-1 in home games and 2-2 in road contests this season to date.

• Junior Chrissy Steffen leads the Falcons in scoring with 13.6 points per game, and she also has 3.8 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 2.2 steals per contest ... Steffen ranks second on the Falcons in both assists and steals ... she averaged 19.8 ppg in the Falcons' first five wins of the year, and has a team-leading seven double-digit scoring games this season to date.

• Redshirt sophomore Alexis Rogers has 9.5 ppg, and she leads the team with 6.9 rpg ... Rogers posted career-high totals in both categories at Youngstown, with 23 points and 11 boards, and she added 19 points in 26 minutes vs. APSU ... she ranks third on the Falcons in steals (1.8 spg) ... Rogers currently leads the Falcons in three-point field-goal percentage, having hit 7-of-18 long-range attempts (.389).

• Senior Jessica Slagle has 9.4 ppg to rank third on the team ... after scoring a career-high 15 points against Butler, she had 12 more at YSU and 12 against Jacksonville ... Slagle added 13 points vs. Madonna, and is averaging 11.3 ppg over the last six contests ... she is tied for third on the team in rebounding (4.1 rpg), and leads the Falcons in free-throw percentage (.844, 27-of-32).

• Redshirt junior Danielle Havel has 7.1 ppg and is second on the team in rebounding, with 5.8 per game ... Havel, Steffen's high-school teammate, leads the Falcons in both steals (2.4 spg) and blocked shots (0.7 bpg) ... she had a career-high six steals in the win at YSU, and set a career standard with 13 points against JU ... Havel also had 13 points in the Madonna game.

• Sophomore Jillian Halfhill has 6.8 ppg and 2.4 assists per outing, leading the Falcons in the latter category ... Halfhill has made 10 three-point field goals this year, tying her for second on the team behind Steffen's total of 15.

• Sophomore Noelle Yoder has 5.0 points per game after scoring a team-leading 14 vs. Madonna ... Yoder has 10 three-pointers this year after making a career-best four vs. the Crusaders ... freshman Jasmine Matthews has 4.5 ppg, and has gone 10-of-26 (.385) from three-point range this year to date ... soph Jill Stein has 3.5 ppg this season, while junior Allison Papenfuss has 3.1 ppg ... Papenfuss and Stein are averaging 4.1 and 3.9 rebounds, respectively ... Halfhill, Havel, Rogers, Slagle and Steffen each started the first 10 games of the year for head coach Curt Miller ... Matthews made her first collegiate start in the Madonna game, joining Havel, Rogers, Slagle and Steffen.

• BGSU returned nine letterwinners, but only one starter, from last year's team that won 28 games, captured the MAC East Division and conference tournament titles and advanced to the NCAA Championships ... BGSU finished the season with an overall mark of 28-5 ... last year's edition of the Falcons went 13-3 in MAC play, en route to the team's fifth NCAA Championships appearance in seven years.

UP NEXT
Following the Wyoming game, the Falcons will hop on a bus for a (relatively) short trip south, to Fort Collins, Colo. ... BGSU will close the non-conference schedule with a New Year's Eve game at Colorado State (Dec. 31, obviously) ... the Brown and Orange then will return home to begin the Mid-American Conference slate with a three-game homestand ... the league schedule starts Jan. 4, when Kent State comes to the Stroh Center.