Perhaps they were up late watching Dick Clark and Ryan Seacrest, or maybe they were thrown off by the horde of Boy Scouts sitting in the student section. Whatever the reason, the Billikens never really showed up on New Years Day at Chaifetz and lost to a Bowling Green team that was wallowing in the 330s RPI and had not won on the road all season.
From the opening tip, one thing was clear. The Billikens were showing good effort on the defensive end, but could not get anything to fall offensively. The Billikens held a slim lead for most of the first half thanks to the defensive effort, but trailed at halftime 27-25. The problem for SLU in the first half was shooting. They finished the half barely shooting around 35%. Surely they couldn't shoot that bad the whole game.
Unfortunately, for Billiken fans, they could. The horrid shooting continued in the second half and SLU finished the game shooting 37% from the field and 21% from behind the arc. In contrast, the Falcons of BGSU shot 52% from the field. Not only did the poor shooting continue, but as the half wore on, BGSU began getting free drives to the basket off of the pick and roll, not really having to work too hard to score points.
To add injury to insult, Head Coach Rick Majerus suffered a laceration to his leg with about 14 minutes left in the game when Paul Eckerle dove for a loose ball out of bounds. Coach was forced to leave and Associate Head Coach Porter Moser finished out the game. Moser said in a post-game interview on 1380AM with Bob Ramsey that the injury to Majerus really affected the team and they were shaken. With all due respect to Coach Moser, the team looked awful before the Majerus injury and they looked awful after the injury.
The loss is the third in a row for the Billikens, who drop to three game s under .500 at 5-8. Head Coach Rick Majerus has never had a losing season in his coaching career and he is going to have to pull off a miracle to avoid his first one this season, as the Billikens head in to conference play.
Next up for the Billikens is the start of Atlantic 10 play on Wednesday, January 5, against the Dayton Flyers. Dayton is 12-3 on the year. They have one common opponent with SLU: Dayton beat Ole Miss 78-71 in OT; SLU lost to the Rebels 69-61. Dayton is led by Chris Wright and Chris Johnson, who both average over 12 points per game.
BILLIKENS PLAYER OF THE GAME
The one bright spot on the day for SLU was the play of Brian Conklin. The Junior forward continued the strong play he showed in Cancun, where he was named to the Cancun Governor's Cup All Tournament team. Conklin led all scorers with 22, which was also a career high for him. He was 8-11 from the free throw line, and grabbed 7 boards in 34 minutes of action.
FALCONS PLAYER OF THE GAME
Guard Dee Brown gets the honors for the Falcons. He led the Falcons in scoring with 21 points, but most importantly he hit 7 of 9 free throws, including all attempts at the line inside the final 30 seconds when SLU was trying to claw back in to the game.
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