Hometown Hero: Lillard Leads 12th-Seeded Falcons Past CMU

Thursday, March 10

Cleveland, Ohio

2:00 p.m.

Bowling Green State University

16-17

Central Michigan (Quarterfinals)

17-13

Bowling Green

Central Michigan

Photo by: Bianca Garza, BGSU Marketing and Communications

March 10, 2016 | Men's Basketball

Box Score

Freshman from Cleveland scores 26 in 62-59 win; BGSU faces Akron Friday at the Q

By: CLEVELAND, Ohio (BGSU Athletic Communications)

2016 MAC Tournament: Bracket (PDF)
Final Stats: Box Score (PDF)
Final Stats: Box Score (HTML)
Video: BGSU Highlights & All-Access
Video: Postgame Press Conference: Huger, Lillard & Wiggins
Audio: Postgame Press Conference: Huger, Lillard & Wiggins
Audio: Postgame Interview with Todd Walker: Huger
Audio: Radio Calls by Todd Walker:
            1st half - Lillard 3pt FG to continue hot start
                         Worrell bucket down low
                         Tisdale drive & and-1
           2nd half - Great block by Alcegaire
                         Joseph dribble drive to tie the game
                         Denny creates for a dunk from Lillard
                         Lillard banks home a three-ball
                         Another Lillard three-pointer
                         Lillard offensive rebound and basket
                         Lillard drills the game-winning three
                         Final Call from "The Voice of the Falcons"
Photos: Photo Gallery (Bianca Garza)
News: The Centennial Season
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Highlights & All-Access

Postgame Press Conference

Lillard Postgame Interview

Wiggins Postgame Interview

Cleveland, Ohio - Freshman Antwon Lillard capped a career game by hitting a three-pointer with 12.3 seconds left, lifting the Bowling Green State University men's basketball team to a 62-59 win over Central Michigan University Thursday afternoon (March 10). The game, a quarterfinal-round contest in the Mid-American Conference Tournament, was held at Quicken Loans Arena.

With the win, the Falcons – the number-12 seed for the 12-team conference tournament – advance to face the top-seeded University of Akron in Friday evening's (March 11) semifinal round.

Bowling Green is the first-ever number-12 seed ever to advance to the semifinal round of the MAC Tournament.

Lillard had a game- and career-high 26 points, going 8-of-12 from the field and 5-of-8 from beyond the arc. The Cleveland Central Catholic H.S. product scored 11 points in the first half and 15 in the second.

Fellow freshman Demajeo Wiggins added 10 points on 5-of-6 shooting for the Falcons (16-17).

Chris Fowler led the Chippewas (17-13) with 16 points, while Braylon Rayson added 13. John Simons had eight points and a game-high 16 rebounds.

CMU, the tournament's fourth seed, led by as many as eight points with under nine minutes to go, but a Lillard three-pointer cut the Chippewas lead to five points out of the under-eight media timeout. The teams traded buckets for the next few minutes, but after a layup by Wiggins, the Falcons got a defensive stop, and senior Spencer Parker's long two-point jumper cut the Falcons' deficit to a single point, 53-52, with 4:21 to go.

CMU's next possession saw the fourth-seeded Chippewas get an offensive rebound and draw a foul, but DaRohn Scott missed a pair of free throws. Again, though, Central grabbed an offensive board, and another Falcon foul sent Scott back to the line. This time, he split a pair of tosses with 3:27 on the clock, giving his team a 54-52 lead.

Scott was called for his fifth foul on the ensuing possession, but an ill-advised lob pass gave the ball back to the Chippewas. CMU used all of the shot clock on the next possession, and Rayson was fouled on a jumper. He split a pair of tosses to give the Chips a three-point advantage with 2:40 remaining.

A BG layup attempt would not drop, and a foul sent CMU's Rayshawn Simmons to the line, where he made one-of-two shots for a four-point Central lead at the 1:57 mark. Lillard, however, took a Parker kickout and knocked down another three-point try to cut the deficit to 56-55. Then, a travel call on Fowler gave the ball back to the Brown and Orange with 1:12 left.

As BG took the ball over midcourt, Central committed a foul on a steal attempt, but BG missed the front end of a one-and-one opportunity. Simons rebounded the ball and after a CMU timeout, Simons converted a driving layup for a 58-55 Chippewa lead with 42 seconds remaining.

Lillard missed a layup try, but tipped in his own miss as Fowler fouled him with 30.3 seconds to go. Lillard's free-throw attempt, however, was no good, and Simons again came up with the board.

Parker was called for his fifth foul with 23.9 seconds remaining, and Simmons went to the stripe. He made his first toss, but missed the second, and Wiggins rebounded the ball. The Falcons, down two, called a timeout with 18.7 seconds on the clock.

Out of the timeout, a pass found Lillard at the top of the arc. The freshman proceeded to knock down the biggest shot of his collegiate career to date, as his triple try found nothing but net with 12.3 seconds to go. BG had a 60-59 lead.

Central quickly came downcourt, but the ball was knocked loose underneath the basket. A Chippewa player grabbed the loose ball, but his foot was out of bounds, and the ball went back to the Falcons.

BGSU successfully inbounded the ball, and Ismail Ali was fouled with 2.9 seconds left. He hit both ends of a one-and-one, giving the Brown and Orange a three-point advantage. Fowler's inbounds pass was intercepted by JD Tisdale just over midcourt, and the clock hit zero.

"(At halftime), the main thing we talked about was getting stops," said BGSU head coach Michael Huger. "Taking it one possession at a time and we wanted to attack them. Antwon was able to step up big time for us. Demajeo, all the guys contributed to what we wanted to do and we were able to execute our game plan, and we never gave up. We fought the whole way.

"The one thing I told them, there was going to be runs, there's going to be some runs where it's going to go in our favor, and some runs that's going to go in their favor. But stay steady and continue, and just never give up. One stop at a time. And, once we started to get the stops at the end, it got a little tight and that was the difference in the game."

The Falcons led on several occasions in the game's early stages. BGSU scored four-straight points to take a 4-2 lead, and a Lillard triple gave the Falcons a 7-4 advantage. After a Fowler jumper, David Joseph's driving layup put the Orange and Brocn up by a 9-6 count with four-and-a-half minutes gone.

But, a Simmons three-ball began a 10-0 run for the Chippewas, which was capped by Luke Meyer's triple. BG went over six minutes without a point before Wiggins took a Joseph inbounds pass and converted a layup at the 9:21 mark. Lillard split a pair of shots from the line, and moments later, his three-pointer cut CMU's lead to 18-15.

BG got as close as two points when Rasheed Worrell rebounded his own miss and put the ball back up and in, and Ali's lob resulted in an alley-oop layup from Wes Alcegaire that made it a 23-21 game. Central scored the next four points, but Tisdale's old-fashioned three point play with 50.9 seconds to go cut the Chippewas lead to three points. Simons, however, answered with an and-one tip-in and layup of his own, and the Falcons trailed by a 31-25 score at the half.

The Falcons shot 34.6 percent from the field in the first half. But, in the final 20 minutes, BGSU was a blazing 14-for-20 (70%) from the floor.

BGSU went 4-for-4 from the floor to begin the second half. Wiggins scored inside, Parker scored off of Joseph's feed, Alcegaire stole the ball and went coast to coast, and Wiggins took an Ali pass and scored inside. The latter two buckets put BG within a single point, but Central answered each time, as Rayson hit a jumper, and Fowler's nifty pass found Luke Meyer for a dunk.

Meanwhile, BGSU's foul count was rapidly accumulating. The Falcons' sixth foul of the second half came with 14:40 remaining, and the team's seventh foul was assessed just over a minute later, putting the Chippewas in the bonus. Simons, however, missed the front and of a one-and-one, and Joseph's layup at the other end of the floor tied the game at 39-all with 13:07 left.

Rayson, though, hit back-to-back buckets, with a second-chance jumper and a finger-roll in the lane. Simons got to the line and hit both shots, and Fowler's fadeaway jumper gave the Chippewas an 8-0 run and a 47-39 lead, the largest of the game. Lillard emphatically ended that run, driving the left baseline and dunking the ball home, but Rayson answered with a pair of charity tosses to restore his team's eight-point advantage. But, out of the under-eight-minute media timeout, Lillard then banked home a three-point try from the right wing to begin the Falcons' comeback.

A turnover by Fowler was followed by a Wiggins layup off of Ali's lob pass. Rayson hit a tough left-side jumper over his defender, but Ali's drive down the right side of the lane resulted in a layup that cut the Falcons' deficit to three points, 51-48. Fowler knocked down a short jumper, but Parker fed Wiggins for a layup, then scored himself, cutting the CMU lead to 53-52 and setting the stage for a furious final four-plus minutes.

The Falcons shot an even 50% for the game, while holding CMU to a 41.2% success rate. BGSU made 5-of-13 three-point tries, with Lillard hitting all five, but the Falcon defense allowed the Chippewas to go only 4-of-20 from the arc, including 1-for-7 in the second half.

Lillard and Wiggins combined for 36 of BG's 62 points on Thursday, while six of their teammates scored between three and six points apiece. Alcegaire had six points, five rebounds and a agme-high three blocked shots, while Ali dished out a BG-best five assists in the win.

The Falcons and top-seeded Akron will meet in Friday evening's first semifinal, beginning at 6:30 p.m. at the Q.

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Notes

The Falcons have advanced to the MAC Tournament semifinals for the first time since 2009.
As the No. 12 seed, BGSU is the lowest seed to reach the semifinals of the MAC Men's Basketball Championship Tournament since Ohio reached the semis as the No. 11 seed in 2003.
For the second straight game, the Falcons have knocked off a higher seed that had swept BGSU in the regular season series this year (Kent State & Central Michigan).
BGSU has now won back-to-back games for the first time since mid-January (Jan. 12 & 16).
The Falcons are now 2-1 all-time as the No. 12 seed in the MAC Tournament.
BGSU improved its record to 11-14 overall in the quarterfinals round of the postseason conference tournament with the win.
The win is the first for the Falcons at "The Q" since 2009, snapping a three-game losing streak.
The 62-59 win gives the Falcons their first-ever win over CMU at the MAC Tournament (1-2).
The win snaps a two-game losing streak to the Chippewas of CMU.
BGSU shot 50 percent for the game, which marks the third straight game in which the Falcons have shot 50 percent or higher as a team.
BGSU is now a perfect 1-0 on the season in games played on Thursdays.
With their 10 assists, BGSU has passed out 10 assists or more in 10 straight contests.
BGSU is now 10-2 on the season when holding its foes to less than 69 points for the game.
Demajeo Wiggins' 10 points gives him four games this season with double digit points.
Antwon Lillard's career-high 26 points marks the first time that he has scored 20 points or more as a Falcon and is the 13th time this year he has reached double digit points.