Falcons Begin Two-Game Road Swing With Wednesday's Ball State Contest

Wednesday, January 25

Muncie, Ind.

7:00 PM

Bowling Green State University

Ball State

Jessica Jess Slagle D's it up against Eastern Michigan

Jessica Slagle & the Falcons head to Muncie for a Wednesday game vs. Ball State (photo by Brandon Heiss, BGSU Marketing & Communications)

Falcons Begin Two-Game Road Swing With Wednesday's Ball State Contest

January 24, 2012 | Women's Basketball

By: BOWLING GREEN, Ohio (BGSU Athletic Communications)

The Bowling Green State University women's basketball team, coming off a win in a rare home game, now returns to the road ... the Falcons of head coach Curt Miller, looking to extend a nine-game overall winning streak, head to Muncie, Ind., for a Wednesday (Jan. 25) game against Ball State University ... tipoff is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. at Worthen Arena ... the Falcons are in the midst of a stretch in which the team plays four of five games on the road to end the month of January.

LINKS
BGSU GAME NOTES & STATS
LIVE STATS | LIVE VIDEO | LIVE AUDIO | TICKETS
BGSU STATS | BGSU MEDIA GUIDE
CAREER STATS OF 2011-12 FALCONS

QUICK HITS
• The Falcons are coming off a 70-54 win over Eastern Michigan at the Stroh Center on Sunday afternoon (Jan. 22) ... the EMU game was a battle of Mid-American Conference divisional leaders, and also was a rematch of last year's MAC Tournament championship game ... additionally, Sunday's contest was BG's lone home game in a five-game span.

• Redshirt sophomore Alexis Rogers had a monster game, with a game- and career-high 30 points vs. the Eagles ... Rogers had 16 points in the first half, as the Falcons opened up a 16-point lead at the intermission ... she scored 14 of her team's 29 second-half points.

• On Monday (Jan. 23), Rogers earned a veritable plethora of awards ... she was named the College Sports Madness National High-Major Player of the Week, and also took home MAC Player-of-the-Week honors from that web site ... Monday afternoon, she was named the league's P-O-W by the MAC office, earning that honor for the second-straight Monday and the third time this season.

• Rogers averaged a double-double last week, with 23.0 points and 10.0 rebounds in the two wins ... she had had her fourth double-double in a five-game span, with 16 points and 11 rebounds at Miami on Thursday (Jan. 19), as BG picked up a 61-58 road win ... she shot 51.7 percent from the field in the two wins, and was 15-of-16 from the free-throw line (93.8%) in the two games.

• Rogers is averaging 12.5 points and 8.4 rebounds this year, in her first playing season at BGSU ... in MAC games only, she is averaging a double-double, with 20.3 ppg and 10.5 rpg, leading the team in both categories ... Rogers is shooting 52.3% from the field and 74.4% from the stripe in league games, and has 21.8 ppg and 11.3 rpg in the Falcons' four MAC home games to date.

• The Falcons are the only remaining unbeaten team in the MAC ... that's the good news ... the bad news? BGSU has played 50% of the team's home conference games, but only 25% of the MAC road contests on the 2011-12 schedule ... six of BG's 10 remaining MAC matchups will come in hostile venues.

• Wednesday's contest at Ball State will be the 500th MAC game in BGSU women's basketball history ... the Falcons are 354-145 in league action over the years, for a winning percentage of 70.9% ... BGSU has the most MAC wins and highest winning percentage of any league program.

• BGSU shot 51.0% from the field in Sunday's win over EMU, the team's third-highest field-goal percentage – and the best in MAC play to date – this season ... the Falcons' 46.7% three-point field-goal pct. (7-of-15) was the second best this year, trailing only BG's otherworldly 57.9% effort (11-of-19) in the Western Kentucky game on Nov. 29.

• At the other end of the court, the Falcons held the Eagles to just a 27.3% field-goal rate, a season-low figure for a BG opponent ... Eastern's field-goal percentage represented the lowest by a Falcon foe since – the teams' last meeting ... BGSU held EMU to just a 16-of-65 performance (24.6%) in the 2011 MAC Tournament championship game, a 51-46 BG win in downtown Cleveland (March 12, 2011).

• Miller, the winningest coach in BGSU women's basketball history, has reached yet another milestone ... the win over EMU was the 250th overall victory of Miller's career ... he became just the second coach in MAC history to reach the 250-win plateau ... Miller trails only Kent State's Bob Lindsay (416 overall wins) on the MAC victories list ... in league games only, Miller ranks third with a total of 127 wins ... the complete lists can be found on page 11 of the PDF version of these notes.

• BG, after beginning the season with a pair of losses, has won 16 of the last 17 games ... the Falcons reeled off a seven-game win streak, suffered a two-point loss at Creighton (Dec. 18), and have won nine consecutive contests since that setback.

• Should the Falcons win at Ball State, it would mark BGSU's seventh winning streak of 10 games or more since the beginning of the 2005-06 season ... the other MAC teams have combined for three such streaks during that time ... Wednesday's opponent, BSU, had two of those double-digit win streaks ... Miami had the third, with a 10-game streak that was snapped by the Falcons on Thursday.

• Last week saw the conclusion of the first intradivisional round-robin swing for MAC teams ... the Falcons finished the first foray through the East Division with a 5-0 record, going unbeaten for the fifth time in the seven years since the conference went to the current scheduling format.

• The Falcons, obviously, are now 6-0 in MAC play, with home wins over KSU, Akron, Ohio and EMU, and road victories vs. Buffalo and MU ... BG is looking to begin MAC action with a 7-0 mark for the fifth time in the last seven years.

• The 2011-12 campaign marks the third season in a row that the Falcons have had two win streaks of at least seven games ... last season, BG had a 15-game win streak as well as an 11-game streak ... two years ago, the Falcons put together a pair of eight-game streaks ... technically, BGSU did not have two seven-game win streaks in the 2008-09 season ... that's because the Falcons had one streak of 25-straight wins that extended from late November into early March.

• Speaking of streaks ... the streak is over; long live the streak ... Eastern Michigan had 39 rebounds to BGSU's 33 on Sunday, snapping a 13-game streak in which the Falcons had had the advantage on the glass ... BG had been outrebounded in each of the season's first five games ... the Falcons are 12-1 this season and 160-14 in the Miller Era when outrebounding the opponent.

• Despite Sunday's rebounding result, the Falcons have enjoyed great success since freshman Kaila Hulls was unofficially named the team's 'rebounding coach' ... Hulls, who is sitting out the season due to injury, had that title bestowed upon her prior to the season's sixth game ... BG has won the battle of the boards in 12 of the 13 games since that time.

• After going with the same starting lineup for the first 10 games of the year, Miller made a change for the Madonna game on Dec. 21 ... freshman Jasmine Matthews joined senior Jessica Slagle, redshirt junior Danielle Havel, true junior Chrissy Steffen and Rogers in the starting five ... Matthews now has started each of the last nine games for the Brown and Orange.

WAYS TO FOLLOW BGSU-BSU
If you can't make it to Muncie for Wednesday evening's game, there are a number of ways to follow the Falcons ...

• RADIO/AUDIO STREAM: The Ball State 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.

• VIDEO STREAMING: Live video streaming will also be available, through the BSU athletics web site, BallStateSports.com, as well as through the conference's site at MAC-Sports.com ... the links can be accessed at BGSUFalcons.com.

• LIVE STATS: Live stats will be accessable through BGSUFalcons.com or BallStateSports.com.

• LONG STORY SHORT...: Just log on to BGSUFalcons.com ... the links to the audio, video and stats can be found there, in the 'schedule' section on the home page, or by accessing the women's basketball schedule and choosing that day's game.

UP NEXT
Following the BSU game, the Falcons will return home long enough to empty out the suitcases and fill 'em right back up ... BGSU will head to Mount Pleasant, Mich., for a Saturday (Jan. 28) game vs. Central Michigan University ... that game is scheduled to begin at 3:00 p.m. at McGuirk Arena.