When John Denver famously crooned that Saturday night in Toledo is like being nowhere at all, I wonder if he had ever spent one at a Toledo-Bowling Green basketball game.
I have to say, guys, I’m beginning to get suspicious.
Because Saturday night in Toledo was pretty rocking.
Well, until it wasn’t.
In the end, it was the aisle-spilling, rafter-rattling scene at sold-out Savage Arena that made Bowling Green’s 85-79 victory all the more impressive.
A Falcons team wearing all-black alternate uniforms fittingly cranked the volume down from max to a funereal quiet as their headline players delivered one big play after another, including a chilled final dagger by star guard Justin Turner.
After Turner swished in a step-back 3 over the outstretched reach of Spencer Littleson — and the most significant of his 20 points shoved the Falcons ahead by nine with 1:32 remaining — he put his finger to his lips.
Shhhhhhhh.
“I wanted some silence,” Turner said with a smile.
An audience of 7,268 — the third-largest at Savage since the 2008 renovation — obliged.
What could be said?
In an entertaining, high-level game by both rivals — Toledo coach Tod Kowalczyk would have predicted a 20-point victory if you told him his team would commit only four turnovers — Bowling Green simply made a few more plays.
This wasn’t the Rockets wobbling or the Falcons outlasting another opponent, as they had in a string of grinding victories that only a mother — and coach — could love.
This was Bowling Green at its floor-spacing and balletic best, coming into a raucous road venue and taking one of the biggest wins of the Michael Huger era.
This was Bowling Green — which was shooting 29 percent from beyond the arc in conference play — raining in 3s (11-of-21) and its Big Three making the biggest plays.
In short, this was the Bowling Green team we all picked to win the Mid-American Conference.
“A huge win for us,” Huger said.
Give the Falcons credit, and nobody more than the triumvirate of Turner, Daeqwon Plowden, and Dylan Frye.
Plowden — a human double-double who has emerged as one of the most dynamic forwards in the MAC — got the Falcons started with seven points in the first three minutes and Frye and Turner finished it.
It had looked like we may be in for a classic.
Toledo and Bowling Green went back and forth in the first half, separated by a pair of no ... no ... yes ... banked 3s by Falcons big men Tayler Mattos and Matiss Kulackovskis and a buzzer-beating 3 by 10th-man Davin Zeigler. BG led 37-33 at the intermission, and the game was tied six minutes into the second half.
But from there, Frye and Turner made all the difference. With the game even at 42, Frye — the slumping senior dead-eye — returned to old form with back-to-back 3s and Turner took it from there, with three straight contested scores to nudge the Falcons ahead 54-46.
Turner then saved his best for last, showing why he remains in the player-of-the-year mix and sending the home fans on a fire-drill march for the exits with his expert-difficulty 3 a step beyond the arc.
For Bowling Green, it was a long time coming.
“You get the calls and the texts, and everywhere you go everyone is saying, ‘Beat Toledo,’” Huger said. “You get tired of hearing that a little bit. It’s great because you know what it’s about and you understand it. When you go out and you perform like this and you are able to get one finally [here], you can stop hearing the other stuff.
“Finally, we can stop hearing that.”
Indeed, the sweet sound of silence.
First Published January 26, 2020, 4:52 a.m.
