EVANSVILLE, Ind. — The Bowling Green State University men’s basketball team continued their three-game winning streak with a defensive showdown, 54-52 victory over the University of Southern Indiana on Saturday.
“When you shoot 28-percent on the road, you usually don’t come away with a win. But to our guys credit, defensively we were good,” BGSU coach Todd Simon said.
“Forced 18 turnovers, allowed only 31% from the floor on someone’s home court. I thought on the defensive end we were really good. Sometimes those shots don’t fall on the road and clearly they didn’t today, but we’re getting there. We knew it was going to have to be a grimy win.”
BGSU improves to 5-2 while Southern Indiana drops to 2-7.
After the Falcons trailed at the half by seven, an early 8-0 run in the second half brought the score to a one-point game. The two teams traded buckets to the last buzzer with USI’s game-winning attempt coming just after time expired for the 54-52 final to push BGSU to 5-3 on the season with five straight home games coming up.
Marcus Hill led the Falcons in scoring for the fourth consecutive game, tallying 17 points with six rebounds, two steals, and he was 9-for-10 from the free throw line.
Jason Spurgin added 10 points and blocked two shots while Sam Towns scored eight to go along with a team-leading and career-high 11 rebounds.
Spurgin has now recorded 10 or more points in five of the last six games. Towns had a career-high five rebounds on the offensive end while playing a career-high 38 minutes.
Trey Thomas, scoring his first points as a Falcon, put together a full stat line as well with six points, five rebounds and a team-leading three assists, and D.J. Smith had six points and two assists.
Southern Indiana tallied the first points of the game, but the Falcons responded. Jason Spurgin pump-faked from behind the arc before driving for a pull up jumper for the first BGSU points. Towns followed with a layup on the next possession for a 4-2 BGSU advantage.
USI answered with a 5-0 run to reclaim the lead at 7-4, but Spurgin hit a three for the Falcons to knot it up at 7-7.
The Screaming Eagles tallied the next point, but a three from Trey Thomas swung the score back to the Falcons at 10-9.
Following Thomas’ three, Rashaun Agee added a free throw as well as a Towns’ layup to make it a 6-0 BGSU run and 13-9 advantage.
The run extended for the Falcons to 8-0 with a layup from P.J. Edwards, holding Southern Indiana scoreless for over seven minutes of game time.
Southern Indiana worked to chip away at the Bowling Green lead, bringing the score to a tie at 19-19. The run for the Screaming Eagles stretched to 9-0, pushing ahead with a 24-19 lead. The lead for Southern Indiana extended to 28-21 at the halftime buzzer, closing out the first half with a 17-4 stretch.
Hill tallied four early points in the second half to help the Falcons trim the deficit to 30-25 at the first media timeout of the second half.
Just before the under-12 media timeout, Thomas got a steal and found Spurgin in transition for the layup to make it a 33-28 score at the break.
The transition bucket started an 8-0 run for the Falcons with Thomas and D.J. Smith both hitting threes for the Falcons to push BGSU in front 34-33.
The pendulum between the two teams began to swing, trading leads. Smith found Hill in the paint to make it a 38-37 BGSU lead. Smith followed it up by drawing a charge on the other end to bring a media timeout.
Southern Indiana tied the game at 42-42, but the Falcons pushed back in front 46-42 with layups from Hill and Agee.
USI narrowed the gap to 46-45, but Smith hit a long three to extend the BGSU lead to 49-45 and force a timeout from the Screaming Eagles.
Southern Indiana again cut into the lead, this time from the free throw line for a 5-0 run, to make it a 51-50 tally with under a minute to play.
Hill added two free throws for the Falcons before USI responded with the same result for a 53-52 score with 11 seconds remaining.
Hill added another free throw to push the BGSU lead to 54-52. Southern Indiana got a look to tie, but the shot was off late to give the Falcons a 54-52 victory.
As a team, the Falcons forced 18 turnovers and tallied eight steals, matching their season-high after having eight against Arkansas State as well.
