KENT, Ohio — Thirteen turnovers, minus-five in the rebounding margin, 30.8 percent shooting from the field, and 28 total points.

Those first-half totals most likely would have amounted to a blowout margin, but that wasn’t the case in Bowling Green State University’s 76-68 men’s basketball loss to Kent State on Tuesday night.

The 20-minute rock fight had the Golden Flashes ahead of the Falcons 29-28 at the break -— a one-point deficit BGSU was lucky to have.

But the grey skies cast from a sloppy first half cascaded into a downpour down the stretch for the visitors, as Kent State pulled away to defeat Bowling Green at the Memorial Athletic and Convocation Center.

The defeat is Bowling Green’s third in four games.

“If we had a better first half, we would have given ourselves a better chance to win the game,” Falcons coach Michael Huger said. “Got to do a much better job of taking care of the ball. Got to get shots.

“The things we talked about, I was pleased with the defense. We defended the first half. I was pleased the way we did in the second half. We just missed our opportunities, and we’ve got to finish those.”

Bowling Green (12-12, 5-8 Mid-American Conference) got a 3-pointer from Myron Gordon to tie the game at 51 with 9:59 to play. But the Golden Flashes (14-9, 9-4 MAC) went on a 16-4 run over the next 5:07 to secure the win.

During that stretch, Kent State made all seven of their attempts from the field, including both 3-pointers. BGSU went 2-for-7 from the field and missed all four of its 3-point attempts.

“We were getting the looks we wanted,” Huger said. “Now, we got to knock them down. They got the looks they wanted. They knocked them down. That’s the difference in the game.

“We’ve got to do a better job of understanding guarding personnel. We’re giving away too many straight line drives to [Andrew] Garcia, knowing what he was going to do. We knew he was going to shoot 3s. He was the one who was the ‘X’ factor in today’s game.”

Garcia had 16 points on 7 of 10 shooting for Kent State. Giovanni Santiago paced the Flashes with 18 points off the bench. He made 4 of 8 3-pointers. Sincere Carry, who hit Bowling Green for 30 points on Jan. 29 inside the Stroh Center, had 17.

Kent State could not get out of its own way early. The Flashes made 39.3 percent of their shots and committed 12 turnovers.

In the first 10 minutes of the game, the teams nearly combined for as many turnovers (15 — KSU 8, BGSU 7) as they did total points (19 — KSU 10, BGSU 9). The Golden Flashes had a 19-12 lead with 6:47 left in the opening half, but a 3 from BGSU’s Chandler Turner and two free throws by Daeqwon Plowden cut it to 19-17 with 5:17 on the clock.

Kent State held a 29-20 advantage with 1:28 to play until halftime, but the Falcons closed the half on an 8-0 run. Matiss Kulackovskis hammered down an alley-oop pass from Gordon with 44 seconds left to cut the deficit to 29-28.

Ultimately, though, much of the 18 minutes that preceded that came back to bite the Falcons.

“In the first half, I think we responded at the end pretty well,” Kulackovskis said. “Had a dunk that kind of sparked the energy. I think we had good energy at the end, but definitely 13 turnovers at the half is too much. It’s too much as a team, and I think that’s something we’ve got to work on going forward.”

The Falcons opened the second half by taking a 32-29 lead on buckets on consecutive possessions by Kulackovskis. He scored BGSU’s first six points of the half on his way to 14 in the game. He started for the second straight game ahead of Joe Reece.

“As coach Huger has been saying, ‘Go set screens, and you’ll be open,’” Kulackovskis said. “So that’s what I did in the second half. The second thing is to always go after boards, because once you get the boards, you get an opportunity to score again. So, definitely doing those two things are making me successful.”

Plowden paced the Falcons with 16 points and eight rebounds. Samari Curtis had 12 points, and Trey Diggs made 3 of 6 3s and finished with 11 points.

Bowling Green is clinging to the No. 8 spot in the MAC standings after Tuesday’s play. They are percentage points ahead of Miami (4-8), which defeated last-place Western Michigan 62-57 on Tuesday. The Falcons and RedHawks will oppose each other in a pivotal game on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. in Oxford, Ohio.

First Published February 9, 2022, 3:25 a.m.