Rough 1st half dooms Falcons

AKRON -- The Bowling Green State University men's basketball team put together a good half of offense and good half of defense Wednesday against Akron.

The problem was that the Falcons also had a bad half of defense and a bad half offense, which doomed them to a 79-68 loss at JAR Arena.

The bad defensive effort came in the first half, allowing the Zips to score 43 points and lead by seven. Because of the second-half struggles of the offense, which shot 34.3 percent from the field, the Falcons were unable to complete a comeback from an 11-point deficit.

"The tone of the game was set for us on the defensive end in the first half," BG coach Louis Orr said. "When you score 36 points and shoot 54.8 percent from the floor, that's a pretty good half.

"We had too many holes in our defense. They scored 32 of their 43 first-half points in the paint, and to me that set the wrong tone."

The Falcons fell to 14-13 overall, 7-6 in the Mid-American Conference, while Akron (20-8, 12-1) became the first team to clinch one of four byes in the MAC tournament.

A'uston Calhoun led all scorers with 18 points and had seven rebounds for BG, while Jordon Crawford added 13 points. Dee Brown scored 11 and became the 39th player in school history to surpass the 1,000-point plateau.

The Zips had five players finish in double figures, with Zeke Marshall leading the way with 16. Brian Walsh, Alex Abreu, and Nikola Cvetinovic each had 12 while Demetrius Treadwell had 10 off the bench.

The Zips steadily built a lead that reached 37-27 with 4:30 left.

"We couldn't come into this building and play tag and outscore them," Orr said. "We gave them too many easy baskets.

"You just can't trade baskets with Akron -- you have to get stops."

The Zips shot 60.6 percent from the field in the first half, which isn't surprising for a team that scored 32 points in the paint.

"I think their dribble penetration -- against our zone -- and post-ups were key," Orr said. "We did a better job in the second half, but I thought the penetration hurt us in the first half."

The Zips led 66-55 with 5:36 to play as the Falcons made 8-of-23 shots (34.8 percent) to that point.

"We were running good offensively and taking good shots, but in the first half everything was falling," Brown said. "In the second half the offense was still there, but we weren't making the shots that we made in the first half.

"We tried to attack the basket more and draw more fouls, but the shots weren't falling."

Bowling Green did make a run at the Zips, outscoring Akron 8-0 to trim the gap to 66-62 with 3:12 on the clock. After a Cameron Black basket in the paint made it 67-64 with 2:17 left, the Falcons turned the ball over on back-to-back possessions, and the Zips got a pair of layups to push their advantage to 71-64 with under a minute on the clock.

From there Akron made its final eight free throws to close out the Falcons, who made just 12-of-35 shots in the second half, including 2-of-12 3-point attempts.

"We didn't shoot it as well, and we didn't get as many easy baskets," Orr said of his team's second-half offensive struggles. "You just can't depend on field-goal percentage to win games for you -- you have to guard. Scoring 68 points in this gym is enough [to win]. Having to score 80 is not playing on our terms. I'll take it if we do, but we have to play defense."

Allowing Akron to shoot 57.1 percent from the floor, which was compounded by the Zips' 19-of-22 effort from the foul line (86.4 percent) resulted in BG allowing its second-highest point total in MAC play this season.

"It was frustrating [at the end] because we knew everyone on the floor could make shots," Brown said. "But we needed to play good defense for the entire game -- when shots are falling and when they aren't -- to put ourselves in a good position to win."

Contact John Wagner at: jwagner@theblade.com, 419-724-6481 or on Twitter @jwagnerblade.

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Akron's inside game tops Bowling Green men's team.