Tough Night in Ohio

It was a tough night at the office for the Billikids, who dropped to 9-5 after their 59-50 loss at Bowling Green on Saturday night.
The Falcons jumped out to a 9-0 lead and were basically threatened for the rest of the night. Outside of an inspired 12 points, four-block effort by freshman Jon Smith in front of his friends and family from Ohio, there really weren't any bright spots to last night's performance.
In the first half, our entire starting five was held scoreless as we could only muster 15 points.
As expected, Bowling Green came out in an aggressive 2-3 zone defense and we struggled to shoot from the perimeter. We shot 37 percent from the field and six of 19 from 3-point range.
The Falcons did a nice job of trapping out of their zone defense and it caused us some big problems. We committed 12 turnovers in the first half with many of them coming when we still had a chance to be competitive.
We could never get any closer than seven or nine points. When we had the opportunity, we would turn the ball over and BG would push the lead back out to double-digits.
BG's bigs really set the tone early. They went inside to their post players early and often and established dominance in the paint. Otis Polk, their 6'9" 280-pound bruising senior, had 13 points and 9 rebounds. His 6'9" back-up, Marc Larson, had eight points and eight rebounds. And 6'7" 220-pound Erik Marschall had 11 points and seven rebounds.
By contrast, Willie Reed was held to four points and no rebounds while Brian Conklin was held scoreless.
Kwamain Mitchell led the Bills with 13 points, but he struggled from the field as well as BG's zone took away his penetration for much of the night. Smith had a breakout game with 11 points on five for five shooting, four rebounds and four blocks in a season-high 26 minutes.
The Bills will have one week to prepare for next week's A-10 opener against Richmond at home. It will be a tough game. As you know, the Spiders have put together a nice resume for the NCAA selection committee in March.
We should expect to see 6'8" freshman Cody Ellis make his Billiken debut next Saturday as well. He could still opt to redshirt, but I imagine he's chomping at the bit to get into action.
I'll have a preview on the Spiders next week.
Until then, Go Bills!