The BG News

UPDATE:

BG 67-53. Three-peat. Wow. 

UPDATE: 

Mann, Achter and Horne are a combined 20-for-32 from the field today. That’s why they made my All-tourney team. I also put Portia Green and Stephanie Raymond on there.

Horne is my MVP. She’s averaging more than 16 points in the tourney and has barely missed. Congrats to her.

It’s 65-49 BG with one minute left.  

UPDATE:

Audrey McDonald just took a nasty spill. The Cardinals are going to have to find someone else to shoot their way back into the game if that’s even possible. It’s 62-45 BG with 4:30 to go.

UPDATE: 

UPDATE:

BG is shooting the lights out of the Q today. An impressive 65 percent has them wishing they hadn’t turned the ball over 17 times. 

UPDATE:

Ball State is doing a great job of keeping the lead between 10 and 25. Ali Mann is showing why she won Co-Player of the Year and Amber Flynn is showing why she won Sixth Man of the Year. Mann has 18 and Flynn has 10. Their inside game is killing Ball State. 60-45 for BG with 7 minutes to go. 

UPDATE:

A quick 6-0 run for Ball State makes it 43-30. Ball State missed two lay ups before the one they just made to force a BG timeout. There’s 13:24 to go and I just got my MVP and All-Tournament team ballot. I’ll let you know who I vote for.

UPDATE:

Lindsey Goldsberry just made Kelsey Corbin look silly on the baseline by pulling out of a fastbreak only to cut back down the line for a lay up. I think Ball State is just plain confused at this point. 43-24 BG with 16 minutes to go. 

Kate Achter comes out of the locker room fired up and scores BG’s first four points and then dishes an assist to Horne. 37-20 BG with 18 to go.

While I’m not really surprised, BG is handling Ball State pretty well. It’s 31-18 but that doesn’t really tell the story. Ball Sate is 5-of-21 from the field with 11 turnovers. They have seven points from foul shots and that’s why it isn’t a bloodbath.

BG is 14-of-23 from the field and has eight steals already. They do have 10 turnovers which might be why they did not score more points. Flynn is great so far with eight points and Mann has been solid too with seven. Thorburn has six and so does Horne.

Like I said, I’ll flip this around in the second half so the updates are on the top.

Ali Mann hits a three and the inside game looks like a battle on both ends. Mann is pushing Julie Demuth around, but Demuth is returning the favor under Ball State’s basket. If Ali can hit more long jumpers, Demuth may loosen up on her.

UPDATE:

Demuth just got packed for the second time and picked up her second foul. Flynn just drove the lane for a tough two. 12-4 BG.

UPDATE:

Ball State can’t get anything early, a Kate Achter steal and lay up forces Tracy Roller to call a timeout, 7-2 BG.

UPDATE:

First media timeout, it’s still 7-2 for BG. The Cardinals offense is not very fluent. BG is playing zone and Demuth is not getting to the basket at all. Horne just jumped over her and blocked a shot because she had to alter it so much. Mann and Honegger are playing well on the block.

UPDATE:

BG just dodged a bullet at one end when Audrey McDonald missed a three, Megan Thorburn went right down and showed her how it’s done. 10-4 BG. Lindsey Goldsbery and Amber Flynn enter.

UPDATE:

Ball State is 1-of-8 from the field and has four turnovers. Ouch.

UPDATE:

11:26 to go and it’s 16-5 BG. Ball State just took their second timeout and BG drew an offensive foul right off the inbound. Tracy Roller is pretty close to getting a technical from what I can see.

UPDATE:

BG is playing really good help defense. I think they force more turnovers when they get lost in a screen because they’re so quick to recover. Ball State now has seven turnovers and is 1-of-10 from the field. BG should put them away while they’ve got them down this much.

UPDATE:

It’s still 18-7 BG at the third media timeout. Ball State would have two points if there were no such thing as fouls. I’m amazed at the amount of people here. BG showed up for this one, I guess that’s what happens when you win a lot.

UPDATE:

Congrats to Julie Demuth, she finally scored. Breske is now in the game. It’s 21-14 BG with five minutes to go in the half.

UPDATE:

Demuth just picked up her third foul by cutting Mann’s legs out on a rebound. It’s 23-16 with 3:30 to go.

UPDATE:

I realize for those of you without a scroller on your mouse reading the updates probably sucks. I’m going to do it the opposite way next half.

Amber Flynn just ran a fake screen and then cut to the basket for a lay up and got fouled. What a play. BG might just be too clever for Ball State. 27-16 BG with 1:37 to go in the half.

BG and Ball State are being introduced and a good percentage of the bottom half of the Q is full. There is a lot of orange, but Ball State has a respectable showing considering how far away it is.

Honegger is starting, it will be interesting to see how quick Flynn joins the action.

Yesterday was the first day that I watched all four games and it was pretty fun.

The first game was NIU and Ball State. For how badly NIU played, they stayed in the game up until the end. They live and die by the three and yesterday they died by it. Stephanie Raymond is done terrorizing the MAC, good luck to her. The Cardinals will now face BG in the finals.

Ball State looks really good. They make open shots and they can get the ball inside. BG needs to basically put that “team defense” concept to work as much as they can. There are seven people on the Cardinals that can score consistently so the Falcons have to be careful on help defense and double-teams.

BG and EMU was a close game too, but once Patrice McKinney fouled out, the Eagles didn’t really have a shot. They made a late push and got within six by driving hard and getting to the foul line, but McKinney is a lot of their offense, so they were kind of screwed. BG played pretty good defense yesterday in preparation for today. They will be facing a much tougher offensive force though.

I did watch the Toledo vs. Miami game. Granted it was from the friendly confines of Harry Buffalo, but I did watch it. How much harder could Toledo choke? Beat everyone in the regular season and then blow it to Miami, a team that lost to BG last Sunday. Tom Pollitz is a beast, but UT just couldn’t score.

The last game was a pretty good one. Akron and Kent are rivals. Rivals like…our football team sucks less than yours or…we don’t have as many meth labs near our school or…we both go to lame schools but they’re really close together.

This was a really cool atmosphere though. There were over 13,000 people there and that didn’t include all of the press members who weren’t covering the game, they just used their pass to get in and watch courtside.

Akron looked like Akron-Buchtel High School played the first half for them. They had 19 points when the halftime buzzer sounded and Romeo Travis had barely touched the ball. Unfortunately for Kent State, they did their best impression of Akron’s first half and were outscored 28-7 in the first fifteen minutes of the second half. Then they pretended they had a chance to win and kept fouling when they were down eight or nine points with less than 30 seconds left.

The championship matchup will be Akron and Miami. I can’t really see either advancing in the NCAA Tourney, so does it really matter who wins?

All in all it was a quality day of MAC basketball. Hopefully today will be the same.

I’m getting pissed about this internet connection. Anyway, BG won 71-57 and will face Ball State tomorrow.

The Falcons beat the Cardinals 86-76 at home this year, but had a true backup point guard then. Honegger was also 100 percent for that game. She may not even play tomorrow according to Miller.

Kate Achter just fouled a 3-point shooter and she made it. Thats rough, Kate’s got three fouls and the Falcons lead is back to nine.

UPDATE:

BG leads 56-47 with eight minutes left. The obnoxious male cheerleader for EMU is trying his best to will them to victory. Breske is back in. I was about to say she didn’t look comfortable but then she slipped around a screen and got fouled going up. She split the pair.

UPDATE:

Every time Ali Mann gets a one-on-one down low, EMU remembers why they double-team her. McKinney is at the scorer’s table right now. BG leads 59-51 with six minutes left.

UPDATE:

BG has to stop the ball quicker. They’ve put EMU at the line a lot this half and it shows. 59-53 with five minutes to go.

UPDATE:

EMU put this really tall girl in the game and it’s giving BG problems rebounding. She’s 6′5″, that’s four inches taller than anyone on the Falcons. I’m not sure where she came from.

UPDATE:

A change in the plot. McKinney just fouled out by knocking over Lindsey Goldsberry while Carin Horne shot a three. No clue how that works, but I’m sure it’s to BG’s favor. 62-53 Falcons with three to play.

UPDATE:

64-55 with less than two minutes to play. BG needs to hit their foul shots because the Eagles will probably start fouling soon.

I had a hilarious halftime paragraph and it is lost now because this crappy connection. I’ll have to redo it after the game.

EMU thinks they’re getting hosed. Really they’re playing bad help defense and taking outside jumpers. Without McKinney in, they have no real slashing presence. It will take a lot for the Eagles to pull this one out.

EMU thinks they’re getting hosed. Really they’re playing bad help defense and taking outside jumpers. Without McKinney in, they have no real slashing presence. It will take a lot for the Eagles to pull this one out.