Falcons Close Out Road Stretch In Lone Star State

Bowling Green Falcons (6-6) at Texas San Antonio Roadrunners (6-6)
Jan. 1, 2012 • 3 p.m. ET • San Antonio, Texas • UTSA Convocation Center (4,080)
Radio: Falcon Radio Network • Todd Walker (Play-by-Play)
Television: None
Live Stats: http://www.goutsa.com
Live Video: http://www.goutsa.com
Online: Stretch Internet (audio)
Complete Game Notes (.pdf)
PURCHASE TICKETS

QUICK HITS
* BGSU completes its month-long five-game road trip Sunday at Texas San Antonio. The Falcons are 1-5 on the road (1-3 on the road trip), while UTSA is just 1-2 at home.
* Bowling Green and Texas San Antonio met for the first time ever a year ago and the Falcons picked up the 70-59 win in Anderson Arena.
* With a three-pointer early in the game against Duquesne, Scott Thomas became the 38th player in school history to reach 1,000 career points. He is the first player in program history with 1,000 points, 500 rebounds, 100 three-pointers and 150 steals. He is also closing in on 300 career assists.
* The Falcons had 18 turnovers at Duquesne and it was just the second time this year the team had more turnovers than their opponent.
* With four steals against FIU, Scott Thomas climbed from ninth to seventh place in career steals at BGSU, passing former teammate Nate Miller. He needs nine more to move into sixth place.
* BGSU is shooting .702 from the free-throw line. The last time a Falcon team shot better for a season was the 2005-06 team that was .720 at the stripe.
* Torian Oglesby has made 16 consecutive field goal attempts over the past six games since missing a first-half dunk attempt against Temple.
* Freshman Jehvon Clarke has come on lately. He scored a career-high 14 points against Michigan State and then had career highs with four assists and three rebounds at Duquesne.
* A'uston Calhoun is averaging 17.6 points over the past five games and has scored at least 20 in three of those contests. He has a team-best 10 career 20-point games.

FALCONS CLOSE ROAD STRETCH IN TEXAS
Bowling Green plays the final contest of its five-game road swing Sunday at Texas San Antonio. When finished, the Falcons will have played five consecutive road games in five different states. Bowling Green is 1-3 thus far during the excursion but will look to sweep the home-and-home series with UTSA. A year ago, the Falcons picked up a 70-59 win in Anderson Arena. This game will also be BGSU's final non-conference tilt before opening conference play at home Jan. 7.

THE SERIES
BGSU and UTSA met for the first time a year ago with the Falcons picking up a 70-59 win in Anderson Arena. In fact, the Falcons have played very few contests against any current Southland Conference school. The team is just 2-3 against the league all-time.

SCOUTING TEXAS SAN ANTONIO
For the second game in a row, Bowling Green will face a team that likes to get up and down the floor quickly. Coming off of an NCAA Tournament appearance a year ago, UTSA is 6-6 this year but is scoring 74.2 points per game. The Roadrunners force a lot of turnovers and commit 3.3 less per game than opponents. Once UTSA gets the ball, the team shoots three-pointers at a 39 percent clip and is one of the top ten free-throw shooting teams in the country at 78.4 percent. However, the Roadrunners are being outrebounded on the year and allow opponents to shoot 35 percent from three-point range. Four players score in double-figures, led by 6-feet-3 junior guard Kannon Burrage at 15.7 per contest. Head coach Brooks Thompson, a former NBA First Round pick, is 84-83 in six seasons at UTSA.

LAST GAME: DUQUESNE OUTRUNS FALCONS FOR 86-76 WIN
A'uston Calhoun had 24 points and eight rebounds and Scott Thomas scored his 1,000th career point but the BGSU men's basketball team lost to Duquesne 86-76 Wednesday night. The Falcons led by as many as 12 points in the first half but the Dukes used a late run to take a six-point halftime lead and pulled away late in the second half. Thomas knocked down a three-pointer early in the game to become the 38th player in BGSU history to score 1,000 career points and finished with 20 on the night to give him 1,018 for his career. Dee Brown added 12 points and Chauncey Orr came off the bench to score a career-best seven points and grab five rebounds.

A NEW HOLIDAY TRADITION
BGSU men's basketball will play on New Year's Day for the second consecutive year as the Falcons play at Texas San Antonio on Jan. 1. The Falcons are 4-1 all-time when breaking in the new year, including last year's 67-61 win at St. Louis. Bowling Green is just one of eight NCAA Division I programs playing on New Year's Day in both 2011 and 2012 (joining Syracuse, DePaul, Marquette, Southern Illinois, Illinois State, Northern Iowa, and Evansville).

OGLESBY EQUALS EFFICIENCY
While senior forward Torian Oglesby doesn't take a lot of shots, he rarely misses when he does. The senior forward has made 16 consecutive field goal attempts over the past six games and is shooting a remarkable 85 percent from the field on the year, making 23-of-27 shots. He made his only attempt at Western Kentucky, was 5-for-5 against Malone and went 1-for-1 at Valparaiso. Against Michigan State, Oglesby went 4-for-4 and followed that up with a 5-for-5 effort against FIU before going without a field goal attempt against Duquesne.He is 12-for-13 (92 percent) from the field in the team's six road games.

WHERE MY FALCONS AT?
Bowling Green is in the midst of playing away from the Stroh Center for a month, heading on the road for five games in five different states. According to Google Maps, the BGSU men's basketball team will travel a total of 6,442 miles during the road trip, or slightly more than a quarter of the way around the planet.

WHAT A STEAL
Over the course of the past two seasons, Bowling Green has been one of the top teams in the Mid-American Conference in steals, leading the conference in that category a year ago. Much like last year, Scott Thomas and Jordon Crawford are leading the way individually. The duo has combined for 46 steals and Thomas ranks third in the conference, while Crawford is seventh. Kent State is the only other team in the league with two players among the top 10 in steals and they are ranked ninth and tenth. Thomas is seventh in BGSU history with 151 career steals and Crawford reached 100 in his career with four against FIU.

STAT STUFFER
While Scott Thomas has proven to be the team's most consistent scoring threat this year, he will also go down as one of the most versatile players in program history. A two-time All-MAC honorable mention performer, Thomas was the only player in the conference to rank in the top 10 in both rebounding and assists a year ago. With a three-pointer early in the Duquesne game, he became the first player in BGSU history to have 1,000 points, 500 rebounds, 150 steals, and 100 three-pointers. On top of that, he also has reached 250 career assists. He could finish his career in the top 10 in BGSU history in rebounds, steals, three-pointers made, and assists.

DEFENDING ON THE PERIMETER
Since George Washington made 11-of-17 three-pointers on the final day of a three-game-in-three-day stretch for the Falcons, Bowling Green has defended the three-point shot well. In the past seven games, the combined long-range percentage of BGSU's opponents is just 26.6 percent (33-of-124).

TAKING CARE OF THE ROCK
Bowling Green ranks second in the Mid-American Conference in turnover margin, averaging 2.67 less turnovers per game than their opponents. The Falcons are only turning the ball over 13.3 times per game, best in the conference, and are forcing 16.0 turnovers by opponents, third-best in the league.

CALHOUN GETS INTO THE RECORD BOOK
By going 9-for-9 from the field in a win over Malone earlier this year, A'uston Calhoun etched his name into the record book for making the most shots without a miss in program history. Brent Klassen and Erik Marschall shared the previous record at 8-for-8.

HEIGHT IS OVERRATED
At 5-feet-6, junior point guard Jordon Crawford is the fourth-shortest player in NCAA Division I basketball. Green Bay's Eric Valentin measures in as the shortest player at 5-4, while Denver's Charles Webb and George Washington's Malik Tonkins are both 5-5. None of those players have the type of impact that Crawford has on the Falcons though as none of the three have started a game and none are averaging more than 1.0 point per contest. Crawford, on the other hand, is third on the Falcons at 10.1 points per game and has started 10-of-12 contests.

IMPROVING EFFICIENCY
While Scott Thomas does just about everything on the floor for the Falcons, the area in which he most needed to improve coming into the 2011-12 season was shooting from three-point range and the free-throw line. A year ago, Thomas shot 29 percent on three-pointers and 59 percent from the charity line. This year, he has made 17-of-42 three-pointers (40.5 percent) and 27-of-36 free-throws (75.0 percent). He is ninth in the MAC in three-point percentage and 12th in free-throw percentage.

JORDON IS SCORIN'
Junior point guard Jordon Crawford started the first five games of the season and then came off the bench for the next two. Since being moved back into the starting lineup for the last five contests, Crawford is averaging 11.8 points and shooting 52.5 percent from the floor. He scored a career-high 22 points against Valparaiso and scored in double-figures in three consecutive games, the first time in his career he has done that.

THE BIG APOSTROPHE
Junior A'uston Calhoun has turned his game up as the 2011-12 season has worn on. He averaged just 2.5 points in the first two games of the season, improved to 12.4 points over the next five, and has averaged 17.6 in the last four. He has also improved his field goal percentage throughout the year.

1,000 POINT SCORERS
With a three-pointer against Duquesne, Scott Thomas became the 38th player in program history to score 1,000 career points. Senior Dee Brown also has a chance to reach 1,000 points this year, which would be just the seventh time in school history that two players have reached the milestone in the same year. Considering 18 regular season games remaining and a minimum of one MAC Tournament game, Brown needs to average 9.4 points through the remainder of the year to reach that total as he sits at 822 career points.

DOWN LOW
Head coach Louis Orr's philosophy is always to play inside-out and the Falcons have done that well during his tenure. This year, the Falcons have scored at least 20 points in the paint in 11-of-12 games with a season-high 58 against Malone. In fact, the 58 points in the paint represents the most in a game in Orr's tenure. In 2009-10 and 2010-11, the Falcons scored 20 or more points in the paint in 57-of-63 games.

THE STROH CENTER
BGSU played its first regular season game ever in the Stroh Center against Howard. After 51 years in venerable Anderson Arena, the Falcons opened one of the newest facilities in the country.

PARKER/HOLMES SIGN WITH THE FALCONS
Louis Orr announced the signing of Spencer Parker and Richaun Holmes during this year's early signing period. Parker is from West Bloomfield, Mich. and is playing for Fishburne Military School in Waynesboro, Va. this year. He will have four years of eligibility remaining. Holmes is from Lockport, Ill. and is playing this year at Moraine Community College. As a full qualifier out of high school, he will transfer to Bowling Green and be able to play immediately with three years of eligibility remaining.

FOREIGN TOUR
The BGSU men's basketball team got the opportunity to travel to Toronto for a summer foreign tour and play three games. The Falcons went 2-1 on the trip, gaining experience and the opportunity for extra practices.

50 PERCENT PROVIDES BETTER THAN A 50/50 CHANCE
When Bowling Green shoots at least 50 percent from the floor, the Falcons have an excellent chance of winning the game. The Falcons went 8-1 a year ago in such instances and are 31-7 in head coach Louis Orr's four years when make at least half of their shots. This year, Bowling Green shot over 50 percent in wins over Temple and Malone, but lost to Valparaiso and Duquesne despite making more than half their shot attempts.

THE NEW HOUSE
Anderson Arena provided BGSU with an excellent home court advantage as the Falcons went 466-190 (.710) all-time in The House That Roars. Bowling Green will attempt to build a new home court advantage after going 10-5 in Anderson Arena a year ago. This year, the Falcons are 5-1 (.833) in the Stroh Center.

FALCONS TO PLAY ON REGIONAL/NATIONAL TELEVISION
BGSU will play a minimum of five games on ESPNU, SportsTime Ohio, or the Big Ten Network this year. The Falcons played on ESPNU at Georgia on Nov. 13 and then played on the Big Ten Network Dec. 17 at Michigan State. The Falcons will also play three games on STO (Jan.7 vs. Ohio, Jan. 28 at Eastern Michigan, Feb. 4 vs. Northern Illinois). On top of those contests, there are approximately a dozen other opportunities for STO or ESPN to choose the Falcons for television games.

DEFENSE WINS
Over the course of the past three years, Bowling Green has held its opponent to 45 percent shooting or worse in 29 of the Falcons' 34 wins. A year ago, Bowling Green went just 2-12 when an opponent shot at least 45 percent, posting victories against only Manhattan (48.9 percent shooting) and Ohio (45.8 percent). This year, the Falcons have already equaled that win total but are just 2-5 when an opponent shoots over 45 percent. Bowling Green actually won for the first time in Louis Orr's tenure when a team shot 50 percent as Austin Peay scored at a 51 percent clip, but the Falcons won 82-72.

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON?
Head coach Louis Orr was an All-American at Syracuse and he will have the opportunity to help his son, freshman Chauncey Orr, grow into a strong collegiate player. Chauncey was a first team all-state player at Bowling Green High School.

FIRST TEAM ALL-STATE
Bowling Green has brought in an Associated Press Division I First Team Ohio All-State player for three consecutive years. Junior Luke Kraus was named first team all-state at Findlay High School in 2008-09. Redshirt freshman Anthony Henderson earned the honor at Toledo Start High School in 2009-10 and Chauncey Orr was named to the team from Bowling Green High School in 2010-11. BGSU is the only school in the country with three players from the AP Division I First Team Ohio All-State teams from the past three years on the roster. Miami (Ohio) and Ohio State each has two.

FALCONS PICKED SIXTH
Bowling Green was picked to finish sixth in the Mid-American Conference East Division in the preseason media poll. Defending MAC champion Kent State was selected to win the East while Western Michigan was selected to win the West.

MAC Preseason Media Poll
East Division - 1. Kent State (132 points/16 first-place votes), 2. Akron (104 points/8 first-place votes), 3. Ohio (94 points), 4. Miami (80 points), 5. Buffalo (62 points), 6. Bowling Green (32 points)
West Division - 1. Western Michigan (128 points/14 first-place votes), 2. Ball State (111 points/9 first-place votes), 3. Central Michigan (92 points/1 first-place vote), 4. Toledo (76 points), 5. Northern Illinois (59 points), 6. Eastern Michigan (38 points)
Tournament Champion - Kent State 12, Akron 6, Ball State 3, Western Michigan 2, Central Michigan 1

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