I'm Busting!

Whew, what a busy but great weekend for Bowling Green athletics. The football team had a sloppy, but hard fought and well earned 39-32 win on the road at Eastern Michigan on Friday night, setting the stage for a huge showdown at Buffalo on Saturday, perhaps with the MAC East Division in the balance. Hoplessly trapped seven hours away from Doyt L. Perry Memorial Stadium and BGSU, needless to say I will be making the hour and a half drive to Buffalo on Saturday. I've been looking forward to it for a while, so I'm just hoping the boys can find a way to pull out a win--we've tended to struggle in big conference road games in recent years. We're 6-4, and 3-2 in the MAC East. Even if we don't get the help of Miami losing their last two games to win the division and go to the MAC Championship game, our final two games against UB and Toledo could go a long way in getting us a bowl birth, as the MAC has three bowl tie-ins. Someone not playing in the MAC Championship is going to a bowl game, and at the very least I'd like that to be BG.

Meanwhile, the BG hockey team swept two games from Western Michigan and Ferris State the last two weekends, which adds up to a 5-2-0 record on the season. (I think we won only 7 or 8 games all of last year.) That's a four game conference win streak, losing only to Notre Dame in a close one. Right now we're 4th in the CCHA. After finishing dead last in 12th the last two years, hopefully these winning ways continue. With Miami, Michigan, Notre Dame and defending national champion Michigan State to compete against, finishing 4th may be asking too much, but the way this team has played so far makes me cautiously optimistic that a top 6 finish may not be out of the question. Top 8 at least, I hope. I was able to attend our first win at RIT in Rochester, and we've won five of six since the drop of the puck that night! This team has a ton of talent though despite their recent struggles, and I think head coach Scott Paluch has finally put it all together to demonstrate that. Remember, the Falcons were the last team to defeat Michigan State last year before they began their run to the national title, and we also knocked off Michigan during the season, for the second year in a row. College Hockey is a little different than basketball and football, as the money grubbing Ohio States of the world have been unable to put a glass ceiling on the BGSU's as they have in the other sports. Bowling Green has a National Championship in hockey, fittingly coming in the year of my birth, 1984. (Perhaps a sign?) It's our only official national title in any sport to date. (Technically the 1959 football team that went undefeated was awarded the "College Division" national championship, whatever that means. I think it would be like a 1-AA championship in modern day terms, but I'm not enough of a historian to be absolute on that. And there was no playoff involved, they just won all nine of their games. My other favorite team, Syracuse, also went undefeated in 1959 and won the "real" national championship after knocking off Texas in the Cotton Bowl, their only title in football. In other words, it would've been sweet for me to be alive in '59. BG and 'Cuse undefeated in the same season? Holy crap.) Oh yeah, hockey. Well, if we won a national championship once, even if it was 23 years ago, we could again. Let's hope this season is the first step in that long journey.

And wow what a weekend for BGSU Basketball.

The Women's team, (read more about them below in the "About Exit 181" post) despite graduating six seniors that went 104-25 in their career, with three MAC Championships and NCAA Tournament appearences, totally blew away a Valparaiso program that won 20 games last season 81-56 in the home opener. Several of last year's players were on hand to recieve their championship rings and unveil another championship banner. With SEVEN freshman on the squad, a repeat of making the Sweet 16 in the NCAA Tournament and 31-4 seems remote, but it seems like any inexperience factors will be neutralized by the unbelieveable talent head coach Curt Miller has brought in to replace his former stars. Picked to finish second in the MAC East behind Ohio U., the only conference team to knock off the Falcons last season, I think they will still be a force to be reckoned with in the league.

Without re-hashing the struggles of BGSU men's basketball during my time as a student, former Syracuse legend Louis Orr certainly has the program off on the right rebuilding foot. Orr, who you may remember as one of Jim Boeheim's first recruits at Syracuse, an NBA player for Indiana and New York (First NBA reference!) as well as a head coach at Siena and Seton Hall, was hired as head coach this spring after a year out of coaching. Seton Hall fired him following the '05-'06 season, after he went 80-69 in five seasons, including two NCAA Tourney appearances and one in the NIT. Firing a coach following a season in which he makes the NCAA Tournament seems laughable, as if Orr averages 16 wins and takes the Falcons to two NCAA Tourneys and an NIT his first five years in BG, we may name the arena after him. (With all due respect to former coach and hall of famer Harold Anderson.) We haven't been to the NCAA Tournament since 1968, there wasn't even 64 teams in it back then. In fact, thanks to the stupid play-in game, we never made the "field of 64." Orr made his BG coaching debut this weekend, a tough test of three games in three days in Cincinnati's season opening tournament. After dropping a tough 63-60 decision to Western Carolina in the opener on Friday, I was discouraged as Western Carolina at 11-20 a year ago was even worse than the Falcons 13-19 mark. But what a difference a year makes. Bouncing back in a major way in game two, the Falcons pummeled a very sold Belmont team that won 23 games last season and was in the NCAA Tourney by a 78-67 score. After Cincinnati lost to Belmont and narrowly squeaked by WCU, a BG win over the Bearcats in their own building on Sunday would give the Falcons the tournament title, after Belmont beat WCU to drop them to 1-2 on the weekend. Well, Cincinnati is not the same marquee program since Bob Huggins drunkenly stumbled out of his office after being canned two seasons ago, but any time you knock off a Big East team in their own gym, it's reason to celebrate. The Falcons 69-67 victory over Cinci gave them the tournament title, and a teriffic resume building win. To beat an in-state team like Cincinnati that is perceived to be a "bigger deal" means quite a bit on several levels. In our eighth try, this was our first victory against the Bearcats. Sure, knocking off a Cincinnati makes you scratch your head on how we let one against Western Carolina get away, but this tournament proved to have four pretty evenly matched teams, at least at this point in the season. The way I see it, we should be thrilled to be 2-1 with great wins over Cincinnati and a very solid Belmont team, as we could easily be 0-3. Certainly spending the last few years in the doldrums of the MAC basement hurts your optimism, and about six months ago a win over a Big East school was probably thought to be impossible. I'll take it. Growing up in central NY as a Syracuse basketball fanatic, and adopting BGSU as my new favorite team during college, talk about the best of both worlds. A guy I already idolized, annoited to resurrect the once proud program of my alma mater. To watch him turn things around would be for me to live a dream, nothin' beats college hoops and as a Falcon and an Orangeman Louis Orr is the perfect hire, and I can't wait to see the end result. March 2008 will be the 30th anniversary of our last NCAA Tournament appearence, let's raise our glasses and toast to not having to wait much longer.

It was certianly a weekend to celebrate all things Bowling Green Falcon.