BOWLING GREEN — The phrase “found a way” often has been Michael Huger’s go-to descriptor when talking about the way that his Bowling Green Falcons win games.
Saturday, that shoe fit yet again for Bowling Green.
The Falcons trailed by as many as 18 points in the first half and by 15 at halftime, saw star guard Justin Turner struggle most of the game, and led for just 2 minutes and 20 seconds, but still scraped together a 62-61 victory again visiting Ohio at the Stroh Center.
Starting due to an ankle injury to Caleb Fields, Trey Diggs scored 22 points to pace Bowling Green, and Turner — who was 1-for-11 from the field before his final shot — sank a game-winning step-back 20-footer with 2.2 seconds to play for the Falcons (20-7, 11-3 Mid-American Conference), who maintained a tie for first place with Akron.
“Hopefully we can get an easy one one of these days and not have to go through this,” Huger said. “But a win’s a win, no matter how you can get it. The most important thing is that we’re able to win.”
BG also saw the return of Dylan Frye, who returned after leaving the team earlier this month. Frye scored 5 points and added 5 rebounds in 19 minutes off the bench and received a standing ovation when he entered the game.
Huger said Frye will have to earn his previous role back, but that he was welcomed back onto the team.
“It wasn’t a ‘why’ that we brought him back. It was that he asked for an opportunity, we were able to give it to him, and that’s how it went,” Huger said.
Winning Saturday took a frenetic second half from BG. Diggs caught fire, scoring the Falcons’ first 12 points, but BG supplied Diggs with almost no help in the first half.
Ohio (13-14, 5-9) barraged Bowling Green with nine 3-pointers on 15 attempts during the first 20 minutes of the game — Huger called BG’s first-half defense “non-existent” — while the Falcons shot a woeful 1-for-14 from 2-point range.
When the second half began, however, Bowling Green wasted no time.
The Falcons started the half with an 11-0 run during which Diggs made a 3-pointer plus a foul, then Daeqwon Plowden hit a 3 of his own that forced Ohio to call timeout. In the span of 3:08, the Falcons cut their deficit from 15 to 4.
Ohio responded with an 8-0 run of its own later in the half to push the lead to 11, but the Falcons kept chipping away, eventually completing a 14-2 spurt that set up a race to the finish.
After Ben Vander Plas’ 3-point play gave the Bobcats a 61-58 lead, Turner hit two free throws with 30 seconds to play. Bobcats forward Ben Roderick missed the front end of a one-in-one, setting up Turner for another end-game scenario to win a game.
“Stuff just really slows down,” Turner said. “I get a certain focus. I kind of get in my zone, honestly. I see that clock going down and I just kind of revert back to stuff I always work on.”
Despite the struggles throughout the game, Turner said he remained confident in his shot: “Whether I was missing or not, I was going to put one up.”
Better yet, the Falcons saw an opportunity and ran with it.
Vander Plas, Ohio’s 6-foot-8 forward, switched onto Turner, and Huger stuck with his gut instinct rather than call his final timeout to run a play.
What followed a familiar result. In 16 games decided by 7 or fewer points, Bowling Green has won 14 times.
“We had a great matchup, and once I saw that — we had one timeout left, but I saw the matchup and I liked that matchup,” Huger said. “It’s hard to get matchups that you like at the end of the game, and we were able to have one.
“I was taking my chances with that one.”
First Published February 22, 2020, 11:37 p.m.
