Chris Jans had an intuitive feeling heading into Saturday’s game at Miami.
That feeling? Zack Denny was going to have a strong impact on the game.
For those who have followed Bowling Green State University’s men’s basketball team this year might not
think that was much of a prediction. Denny has had a profound impact on the majority of games this
season.
But this game was different. Denny had been struggling in the areas he tends to affect the most – defense
and rebounding. In fact, his play knocked him from the starting lineup.
In his second straight game off the bench, Denny was back to his old self. The defense was there and the
scrappiness was back.
And his shooting – well, it won Bowling Green the game.
Denny started 2-for-8 from the field in Miami’s Millett Hall. His two makes were early in the first half.
The shooting drought came and it hit hard affecting the entire team, not just Denny.
Bowling Green came out of the halftime break and didn’t score until more than nine minutes had passed in
the second half. Denny didn’t score again until just after the 12-minute mark had passed in the second
half.
But when he finally hit, he caught fire and he sparked Bowling Green’s 27-point effort in the final 7:47
to help the Falcons close a 62-57 win over the RedHawks, setting up an even bigger game tonight against
Kent State, which sits in second place in the Mid-American Conference East standings – a game behind the
Falcons.
Denny was 0-for-3 from deep before he ripped a 3-pointer to bring Bowling Green’s 11-point deficit back
to single digits with 7:47 to play. He went on to score 13 points and hit two more 3s in those final
minutes to finish with a team-high 17 points.
Denny was back to himself.
"I told our staff before the game that Zack Denny was going to play well (Saturday)," Jans said
after the win. "… He and I had a very productive individual meeting and his mind was right. I could
feel it, I could sense it. Even though he was 2-for-7 in the first half I still felt he was impacting
the game because he was playing solid defense, he was moving his feet.
"He didn’t have a very good outing against Miami (on Feb. 18), probably defensively more than
anything else," Jans added. "He wanted to rectify that, we wanted to rectify that. And he did
that (Saturday). He was on point. He was keeping his man in front and then eventually he started
knocking those shots down."
The shots started to flow and Bowling Green looked as good offensively as anyone could ask, going
7-for-10 from the field in the last eight minutes. That was right after the Falcons looked about as bad
as a team could offensively when it didn’t score for 9:46.
Denny provided the spark, even after his shooting was off – way off initially.
"After we had the talk I had a very positive mind coming into the game and I was very confident in
myself," said the soft-spoken Denny.
His shooting numbers have remained fairly consistent throughout the season. The 40-percent 3-point
shooter had knocked down four triples on Feb. 14 at Ball State. He followed with three combined 3s over
the next three games on just eight attempts.
But it was Feb. 21 against Buffalo and Feb. 24 at Ohio that Denny really struggled. His scrappiness had
gone away and he came away with just three rebounds in the two games.
Jans pulled Denny from the starting lineup at Ohio after he had started 20 straight games. He played just
19 minutes in the game, the least amount since playing 14 at Western Kentucky on Dec. 3. Denny had
played 30 minutes or more in 13 of the previous 19 games.
"I just kind of wanted to press the reset button for him and make him understand how important he is
to us and how valuable he is to us," Jans said of his one-on-one meeting with Denny.
Denny’s impact comes as a surprise to some, but none more than to Jans.
He came to Bowling Green as a strong shooter, averaging 33 points per game as a senior at Valley View
High School. But injuries wiped his freshman year after playing just 31 minutes in three games a season
ago.
"Sometimes I forget that he’s basically a freshman," Jans said. "I don’t know how many
minutes he played last year …. And I sometimes forget that because we rely on him for so much."

The sophomore guard came off the bench again Saturday against Miami. But Jans has always said that it
matters who is playing at the end of the games and not at the beginning.
Denny certainly solidified his spot at the end of games after Saturday.