MUNCIE, Ind. – Sparked by a well-played second half, Bowling Green’s men’s basketball team posted a 75-62
victory over Ball State on Tuesday.
The Cardinals held a 35-34 lead at the end of the first half, but the Falcons rolled out 41 points and
held Ball State to 27 points in the second half to secure the win.
“We were defending like crazy. We did a really good job defensively,” BG head coach Michael Huger said.
“We did a good job sharing the ball. We did a good job knocking down shots.
“It was so much fun especially after what we went through with the six-game losing streak to now put
together two in a row,” Huger added.
Defensively the Falcons used a three-quarter court trap and a press to try and slow down the Cardinals.
BG forced 23 Ball State turnovers.
“We wanted to take some time off the clock for those guys. Hopefully we could bait them into thinking we
were not trapping them,” Huger said. “We were waiting for them to get to a certain spot where we wanted
to trap them. It worked really well for us.”
In the second half, a layup by Caleb Fields gave BG a 42-40 lead with 17:08 remaining and Bowling Green
never trailed again.
Kaden Metheny’s 3-pointer gave the Falcons their biggest lead, 70-54, with just over four minutes
remaining.
There were three milestones in Tuesday’s victory.
The win was Huger’s 100th as the Falcons head coach. Huger is the sixth Falcon head coach to reach 100
career victories.
“At the end of the game, I really forget about it,” Huger said about reaching 100 wins. “The guys just
said it again that it’s 100. … It’s always great to have that stuff, but I don’t think about that. It
was just fun with the guys celebrating.”
With his 27 points, Justin Turner now has 2,025 points in his BG career, the first Falcon to reach that
milestone. Turner is also the seventh player to reach 2,000 points in the Mid-American Conference.
“The biggest reason why it is going better, the other guys are starting to step up and make shots so he
doesn’t have to do as much. It’s always difficult when other guys are not making shots and now you have
to try to do so much,” Huger said about Turner. “You take some ill-advised shots and different things
because you are trying to make something happen. Now other guys are playing so well that it’s making it
easy for him and he is still getting his numbers.”
Metheny scored a career-high 21 points.
“He has been playing much better lately and shooting the ball extremely well also,” Huger said about
Metheny.
NOTES: The victory helped the Falcons wash away an 88-64 loss to Ball State on Jan. 12 … With the win the
Falcons are 12-9 overall and 8-7 in the MAC … Ball State is 7-10, 5-7 … Fields had 10 rebounds for BG
and teammate Daeqwon Plowden scored 11 points and blocked four shots … BG next game is scheduled for
Feb. 26 at Akron.
BGSU 75, BALL STATE 62
BGSU
J. Turner, 9-2-3—27; Plowden, 5-1—11; Swingle, 1-0—2; Metheny, 3-4-3—21; Fields, 1-1—3; Diggs, 1-1-2—7;
Young, 0-0—0; Washington, 0-0—0; C. Turner, 0-0—0; Fulcher, 2-0—4. TOTALS: 22-7-10—75.
BALL STATE
Thomas, 1-0—2; Walton, 3-5—11; Coleman, 1-3-0—11; Hazen, 5-0—10; El-Amin, 4-1-0—11; Acree, 3-1-0—9;
Bumbalough, 1-0—2; Huggins, 3-0—6. TOTALS: 21-5-5—62.