Courtesy of FGCUAthletics.com
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio – Dylan Frye hit a pull-up 3-pointer with .9 of a second remaining Saturday night to give Bowling Green (2-1) an 83-80 win over the FGCU men’s basketball team (2-1), snapping the Eagles’ 10-game road winning streak.
On a poor shooting night for FGCU, Christian Terrell paced the Eagles with 18 points on an efficient 8-11 from the floor, while Brandon Goodwin added 17 and Ricky Doyle netted 11. The Eagles – who were in foul trouble most of the game – shot 48.6 percent (17-35) in the 1st half, but connected at just a 36.1-percent clip (13-36) in the 2nd half as FGCU squandered a halftime lead for only the fifth time in head coach Joe Dooley‘s 4+ seasons at the helm.
FGCU – ranked #12 in the CollegeInsider.com Mid-Major Top 25 Poll – was uncharacteristically out-rebounded by the younger Falcons, 46-42, and 12 of those were on the offensive glass, although the Eagles did finish with a 44-32 edge in paint points. The Eagles allowed 18 second-chance points, and BGSU shot 51.7 percent (15-29) in the 2nd half after the Green and Blue limited the Falcons to just 32.4 percent (12-37) in the 1st half.
Trailing 80-74 with less than a minute remaining, FGCU made a valiant effort to tie the game at 80-80 on a pair of Zach Johnson free throws with 5.3 seconds left. However, on the ensuing in-bounds, Frye received the ball, accelerated into the frontcourt, orchestrated a cross-over step-back and hit the game-winning 3-pointer from the wing in front of the BGSU bench.
The Eagles were unable to get a final shot attempt off as Terrell (Jacksonville, Fla./Providence HS) had his in-bounds pass go over the out-stretched arms of Goodwin (Norcross, Ga./UCF/Norcross HS) amidst a little bit of contact near the mid-court line.
“We simply took too many bad shots and made too many poor decisions with the ball, which for a veteran team is very surprising to see,” commented Dooley, whose team’s 16 turnovers led to 16 points for BGSU. “We didn’t hustle enough on the backboards, either. Surrendering offensive rebounds is something that we’ve been able to overcome in the first couple games, but it hurt us tonight.”
The Eagles entered the game with the nation’s second-longest road winning streak at 10 in a row dating back to the last year. They were looking to tie the longest streak in the country, which is occupied by last year’s national runner-up Gonzaga.
Additionally, FGCU held a 43-40 halftime lead, and the setback moved the Eagles’ record to 70-5 when leading at intermission. Furthermore, the Green and Blue are now 41-6 under Dooley when scoring at least 80 points.
The Eagles got off to a torrid start and led by seven not even three minutes into the contest. That lead grew to a game-high 13 at the 10-minute mark as Goodwin found RaySean Scott Jr. in transition to put FGCU up, 28-15, prompting a BGSU timeout.
Doyle (Cape Coral, Fla./Michigan/Bishop Verot HS) was a force early with seven points, three rebounds and a block in his first five minutes of action before picking up his second foul at the 11:39 mark of the 1st half, sending him to the bench for the duration of the stanza.
That foul trouble continued, and by the 5-minute mark of the 1st half, three FGCU bigs all had two fouls and were sitting – Doyle, Scott Jr. and Antravious Simmons. Before the half was up, four Green and Blue starters and five players overall had been whistled twice and were on the bench.
That allowed BGSU to get back into the contest as the 13-point FGCU lead was trimmed to just three multiple times by the Falcons, culminating with the aforementioned 43-40 halftime advantage for the Eagles.
However, that lead dissipated to open the 2nd half, and BGSU opened up its largest lead of the game at six – the 80-74 cushion – following a Frye 3-pointer at the 1:17 mark. That eventually proved too much for the Green and Blue to overcome.
Justin Turner led BGSU – the third-consecutive opponents for the Eagles to start the year that was receiving votes in the mid-major poll – with 20 points to go along with seven rebounds, while Frye added 15 points and his only two 3-pointers of the game in the final 80 seconds. Demajeo Wiggins tallied 14 points for the Falcons, while Derek Koch narrowly missed a double-double with nine points and 11 rebounds.
Doyle and Goodwin tied for the Eagles’ team lead with seven rebounds each, with Goodwin also passing out a game-best five assists. Simmons (Miami, Fla./VCU/South Miami HS) just missed reaching double figures with an eight-point night – a total matched by Johnson (Miami, Fla./Norland HS) – while Dinero Mercurius (Orlando, Fla./Daytona State/UTRGV/USF/Faith Baptist Christian HS) continued his hot shooting off the bench as he knocked down three 3-pointers for the third time in as many games to open his redshirt junior transfer campaign in the Green and Blue.
After missing the first two games of the year with a muscle strain in his knee, sophomore Scott Jr. (Compton, Calif./Compton HS) made his season debut Saturday and finished with two points and a pair of rebounds in nine foul-plagued minutes.
FGCU remains on the road and heads to Middle Tennessee (3-1) for a mid-major clash with the Blue Raiders on Tuesday, Nov. 21, at 7:30 p.m. Eastern. Middle Tennessee is receiving votes in the Associated Press Top 25 and has won a game in the NCAA Tournament in each of the previous two years.
NOTEWORTHY: Bowling Green now leads the all-time series, 2-0 … FGCU shot just 6-23 (26.1 percent) from 3-point range … Goodwin went 8-10 from the free-throw line, while Johnson made all four of his attempts … Terrell is now 15-18 from the floor over the past two games … 11 different players logged game action for FGCU, and 10 different players scored.
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