Sparked by a strong defensive effort to start the second half, Bowling Green’s men’s basketball team
rolled to a 101-78 victory over South Carolina State Saturday afternoon at the Stroh Center.
“We can score. I don’t think we will ever have any problems scoring. Now we have to get better on the
defensive end,” BG head coach Michael Huger said. “They don’t understand that the defense can turn into
offense. The defense is triggering the offense.
“We play really good defense and we score a ton of points,” he continued. “We don’t play good defense we
score a ton of points, but the other team scores more points than us and that’s what is going on right
now.
“We are able to understand how important defense is and that’s been the difference.”
The game was close in the first half as the Falcons had a 45-43 lead after the first 20 minutes.
“We didn’t have the best first half, I’ll tell you that right now. We turned the ball over way too much,”
Huger said. “We weren’t able to handle their press.”
To start the second half, Bowling Green scored 21 straight points before South Carolina State’s Tarig
Simmons scored on a layup with 15:40 left to play.
The Falcons continued to pull away in the second half, leading 92-66 with 3:42 remaining before posting
the 23-point victory.
“We are still a work in progress and every day we have to work to get better,” Huger said. “We have four
new guys we have to incorporate into what we do.
“We’re still working, and we’re still getting better,” he added. “I think we will be scary when it’s all
said and done.”
Daeqwon Plowden led the way for Bowling Green with 19 points and 16 rebounds.
“We started off slow a little bit. It’s not how you always start the game, it’s how you finish it out. I
think we finished strong,” Plowden said.
Trey Diggs came off the bench for the second straight game and was 3-of-6 on 3-pointers and 8-of-9 from
the free-throw line for 17 points.
Justin Turner finished with 16 points and six assists, Caleb Fields added 15 points and five steals and
freshman Kaden Metheny contributed 13 points.
NOTES: Mattis Kulackovskis, a 6-foot-9 redshirt junior, was unable to play for the second straight game …
BG led for 37:50 of the game … The Falcons held a 48-29 rebounding advantage … BG will play at
Appalachian State on Monday with a 6 p.m. start … The next home game is a Mid-American Conference
contest with Buffalo on Dec. 6.
SOUTH CAROLINA STATE 78
Fulks, 1-0¬¬—2; Lawrence, 1-2-0—8; Edwards, 0-4-0—12; Moorer, 2-2-0—10; James, 0-0-0; Davis, 4-3—11;
Simmons, 3-2-0—12; Rideau, 1-2-0—8; Guitian, 3-0—6; Croskey, 2-1-0—7; Nelson, 1-0—2; Wright, 0-0—0.
TOTALS: 18-13-3—78.
BOWLING GREEN 101
J. Turner, 2-2-6—16; Fields, 3-2-3—15; Metheny, 0-3-4—13; Plowden, 7-5—19; Swingle, 1-2—4; Washington,
1-0—2; Young, 1-0—2; Diggs, 0-3-8—17; Zeigler, 1-2—4; Fulcher, 2-0—4; C. Turner, 2-0—4; Elsasser, 0-1—1;
Watson, 0-0—0. TOTALS: 20-10-31—101.