Falcons Open Second Half Of MAC Play At NIU

BGSU at Northern Illinois
Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2013; 8:00 p.m.
NIU Convocation Center (9,100) / DeKalb, Ill.
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2012-13 MAC STANDINGS
EAST TEAMS	MAC	OVERALL
Akron	8-0	17-4
Ohio	6-1	15-6
Bowling Green	3-5	8-13
Buffalo	3-5	8-14
Kent State	3-5	12-10
Miami	3-5	8-12
WEST TEAMS	MAC	OVERALL
Western Michigan	6-2	14-7
Toledo	5-3	9-10
Eastern Michigan	3-4	10-11
Northern Illinois	3-5	5-15
Ball State	2-6	8-12
Central Michigan	2-6	9-12

QUICK HITS (SIZED FOR YOUR TWITTER ADDICTION)
* Bowling Green opens the second half of conference play at Northern Illinois Wednesday night at 8 pm.
* Both BGSU and Northern Illinois are 3-5 in MAC play as part of a five-way tie for sixth in the league standings
* Bowling Green is looking for its first road win of the year, sitting at 0-8. NIU is 3-6 at home.
* Bowling Green is 29-25 all-time against Northern Illinois and has won the last six meetings, all under coach Louis Orr.
* Chauncey Orr has scored in double-figures in four of the past five games, shooting 61 percent from the field.
* Chauncey Orr has also made eight of his last 12 three-point attempts over the past five games.
* James Erger is coming off of a career-high nine points in the win over Ball State, tying a career-best with four rebounds.
* Craig Sealey scored a season-high 10 points vs. Akron, becoming the seventh Falcon to score at least 10 in a game this year.
* BG's Jordon Crawford and A'uston Calhoun are the second-highest scoring duo in the MAC, averaging 31.5 points per contest.
* Despite going blockless in the last two games, Richaun Holmes ranks 24th in the country in blocked shots at 2.5 per contest.
* Richaun Holmes' 53 blocked shots are 16 more than Northern Illinois has as a team on the year.
* Richaun Holmes needs seven more blocked shots to post the highest single-season total in program history.
* BGSU has committed a MAC-low 12.2 turnovers per game.
* BGSU has won four games this year when shooting below 40 percent from the field.
* Jordon Crawford has 26 assists in the past four games, his best four-game total of the year.
* Luke Kraus had a career-best five steals against Ball State.
* A'uston Calhoun has scored in double-figures in seven straight games.

BOWLING GREEN STARTS SECOND HALF OF MAC PLAY AT NIU
Bowling Green looks to start a winning streak Wednesday night as the second half of Mid-American Conference play begins. Coming off of a 70-59 win over Ball State, the Falcons head on the road to face a Northern Illinois squad that Head Coach Louis Orr is 6-0 against all-time. Game time is set for 8 p.m. EST.

THE SERIES
Bowling Green is 29-25 all-time against Northern Illinois and the Falcons have won six in a row over the Huskies. BGSU won two of those contests in DeKalb and have not lost to NIU since a 73-51 road defeat in the 2006-07 season.

LAST GAME: FALCONS' BENCH SPARKS TEAM TO WIN OVER BSU
Bowling Green's bench scored 38 points and the Falcons led wire-to-wire for a 70-59 victory over Ball State Saturday afternoon in the Stroh Center. Jordon Crawford came off the bench for 19 points, eight assists and two steals, while A'uston Calhoun had 17 points and six rebounds in a starting role. James Erger scored a career-high nine points and Luke Kraus, inserted into the starting lineup, had five assists and a career-best five steals. The Falcons shot 57.7 percent from the field.

BLOCK PARTY
Despite being held without a block in each of the past two games, Richaun Holmes ranks 24th in the country with 2.5 blocks per game and needs just seven more to break the BGSU single-season record of 59 (set by Cornelius Cash in 1973-74). He has blocked at least four shots six times this year and ranks second in the country in block percentage at 15.4 percent (percentage of non-three-point shots blocked while on the floor). Holmes has more blocked shots than four MAC teams, including 16 more than Wednesday's opponent Northern Illinois.

10 ORR MORE
Sophomore Chauncey Orr, son of head coach Louis Orr, has put together the strongest stretch of his young career, scoring at least 10 points in four of the past five games. He scored a career-high 18 points in a win over Kent State and is averaging 12.0 points on 61 percent shooting during the stretch. Orr has also made 8-of-12 three-pointers and 8-of-10 free-throws to go with seven assists and six steals.

CLOSE THE DEAL
Bowling Green has been ahead or tied in the final 10 minutes in 17 of the team's 21 games this year, including 9-of-13 losses. Seven times, Bowling Green has had possession in the final 10 seconds of those losses with a chance to win or tie.

1,000 POINT TEAMMATES
With a fastbreak lay-up early in the game at Buffalo, Jordon Crawford joined teammate A'uston Calhoun in reaching 1,000 career points this year. The duo are the 40th and 41st players in program history to reach that milestone. They are the eighth set of teammates to score 1,000 career points in the same season, but it is the first time that it's happened in back-to-back seasons as Scott Thomas and Dee Brown reached that total a year ago.

PLUS/MINUS
Although they rank just fourth and fifth on the team in scoring, Richaun Holmes and Anthony Henderson may have had the largest impact on the success of the team so far this year. Bowling Green has outscored its opponents by 29 points when Holmes is on the floor and by 16 when Henderson is on the court. Those are the top two plus/minus ratings on the Falcons this year.

CHAIRMEN OF THE BOARDS
Bowling Green is 6-1 when outrebounding its opponent this year. The Falcons snapped a stretch of being outrebounded in five consecutive games when the team held a 30-26 advantage against Ball State Saturday.

BRACKETBUSTERS
The 11th and final Ramada Worldwide BracketBusters match-ups were announced Monday evening and Bowling Green will play at IPFW on Feb. 23 at 7 p.m. The Falcons are 6-4 all-time in the BracketBusters series and are 1-1 all-time against IPFW.

1-2 PUNCH
Senior forward A'uston Calhoun and senior guard Jordon Crawford currently rank as the second-highest scoring duo in the Mid-American Conference, averaging 31.5 points per game. Toledo's Rian Pearson and Julius Brown lead the way at 31.9 points, while Kent State's Chris Evans and Randal Holt are third at 30.4 points.

MORE OF THE DYNAMIC DUO
Both A'uston Calhoun and Jordon Crawford are averaging at least 15.0 points per game. The last BG teammates to finish a season at 15.0 points per game or better were John Reimold (18.5 points) and Josh Almanson (17.2 points) in 2004-05.

68 OR LESS
Bowling Green is 0-9 this year when opponents score at least 68 points and 8-4 when holding those teams to 67 or less.

HOME COURT ADVANTAGE
In just over one year, the Stroh Center has proven to be a difficult place for opponents to play. The Falcons are 7-3 this year at home after going 12-4 a year ago, including a mark of 3-0 against teams that eventually went to the NCAA Tournament (victories over Detroit, Temple and Ohio). The 19-7 record in the Stroh Center comes out to a .731 winning percentage, which is higher than the program's .709 winning percentage in Anderson Arena, the home for the Falcons from 1960-2011.

STROH IN THE 70'S
BGSU is 8-0 all-time when scoring at least 70 points in the Stroh Center. The Falcons went 5-0 last year and defeated Detroit 70-65, Kent State 70-55 and Ball State 70-59 this year.

50% IS GREATER THAN 80%
Under Head Coach Louis Orr, Bowling Green has won more than 80 percent of its games when its shoots at least 50 percent from the floor. A year ago, the Falcons went 8-3 in such games and are 38-9 in Orr's five years at Bowling Green when reaching that total. BG shot 50 percent from the field twice this year, losing at Miami and defeating Ball State at home.

HINDSIGHT IS 20-20
When Jordon Crawford and A'uston Calhoun each scored 21 points at Miami, it marked the second time this year that the senior duo has each reached the 20-point mark in the same game. Unfortunately, the Falcons have lost both of those contests (the other being a triple overtime loss at South Florida). In fact, Bowling Green has lost all three games in their careers when they both scored 20 points (losing at Valparaiso a year ago).

BLOCKING OUT
Bowling Green has blocked as many or more shots than its opponent in 18-of-21 games this year, including a season-high 10 against USF. It marked the first time the Falcons had 10 blocked shots in a game since blocking 11 at Illinois State on Dec. 6, 2008. Sophomore transfer Richaun Holmes has led the way with 53 blocks, ranking second in the MAC.

WINNING UGLY
One sign of a good team is the ability to win games when not playing at its best. Four times this year, the Falcons have won games when shooting below 40 percent from the field, beating Lake Erie, Wright State, Samford and Eastern Michigan. A year ago, BGSU lost all seven contests when it show below 40 percent.

D-FENSE! D-FENSE!
Earlier this year, Bowling Green held Wright State and Samford to 42 points or less in back-to-back games. It was the first time the team had done that in successive games since doing so against Loyola and Pepperdine on Dec. 22 and Dec. 27, 1949. It also marked the first time the team held back-to-back opponents to 83 points or less since holding Western Ontario and Miami to 82 points on Dec. 8 and Dec. 12, 1962.

NOT ONE, NOT TWO, BUT THREE OVERTIMES
While the school record for overtimes in a single game is four, Bowling Green played a triple overtime contest for the first time in 20 years against South Florida earlier this year. The last time the Falcons went that deep into the night came in a 91-88 loss to Ball State on Jan. 29, 1992. Overall, the Falcons have played in four overtime sessions already this year, the most since the team played four overtime games in the 2001-02 season.

THE POST GAME
Head coach Louis Orr's philosophy is always to play inside-out and the Falcons have done that well during his tenure. In the past four seasons, BGSU has scored 20 or more points in the paint in 103-of-115 games. The high-water mark came when Bowling Green scored 58 points in the paint against Malone a year ago.

FRESH FACES
BGSU head coach Louis Orr announced the signing of three student-athletes during the fall signing period. J.D. Tisdale (Flint, Mich./Swartz Creek High School), Zach Denny (Germantown, Ohio/Valley View High School) and Garret Mayleben (Milford, Ohio/Milford High School) will join transfer Josh Gomez (Brooklyn, N.Y./Rice High School/Iona) among next year's incoming class.

FALCONS ON REGIONAL/NATIONAL TELEVISION
BGSU will play a minimum of three games on ESPNU and SportsTime Ohio this year. The Falcons hosted Michigan State on ESPNU on Dec. 18 and then played host to Eastern Michigan on STO on Jan. 12 and Akron on Jan. 30. There will be 10 more MAC games selected to be aired on ESPN/STO throughout the year.

PRESEASON ALL-MAC
A'uston Calhoun earned East Division Preseason All-MAC honors by voting of 24 members of the MAC News Media. Calhoun was one of five players selected in the East Division, joining Buffalo's Javon McCrea, Akron's Zeke Marshall, and Ohio's D.J. Cooper and Walter Offutt.

MEDIA PICKS BOWLING GREEN FIFTH
Bowling Green was picked to finish fifth in the East Division by vote of 24 members of the MAC News Media. The Falcons were chosen ahead of Miami, while Ohio was selected to win the division, followed by Akron, Kent State and Buffalo.

A'USTON IS ALL-MAC
A'uston Calhoun was named to the 2012 All-MAC Second Team by vote of the league's 12 head coaches after being named honorable mention in 2011. Calhoun ranked fifth in the MAC in scoring in league games (15.1 points per game), eighth in field-goal percentage (50.3 percent), and 12th in rebounding (5.4 per game).

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