BOWLING GREEN — If Bowling Green fans have heard it twice, they have heard it a thousand times.
The Falcons are entering Year 54 of their NCAA tournament drought. Among teams that have reached the tournament at least once, it’s tied for the third-longest dry spell in the country behind only Dartmouth and Tennessee Tech. With the departure of All-MAC talent Daeqwon Plowden, yet another decorated star has come and gone from Wood County without reaching the Big Dance.
Their problems go deeper than that, though.
Coach Michael Huger has led Bowling Green to just one postseason appearance in his seven-year tenure, a pit stop in the 2021 CBI that ended in a 53-52 loss to Stetson (the Falcons did go 22-12 in 2019, and 21-10 during a 2020 season cut short by the coronavirus pandemic). Bowling Green was at least a pseudo-regular in the NIT in making eight appearances from 1980 to 2009 — but the Falcons haven’t been there since.
With a prove-it year looming for the entire program starting Monday at home against Air Force, here are three questions that will shape the course of Bowling Green’s 2022-23 season.
1. How are Huger and company going to fix that defense?
The Falcons’ defense last season was an eyesore, and it showed: Bowling Green allowed 80.5 points per game to rank 355th out of 358 teams in Division I. The Falcons surrendered 90 or more points on nine different occasions after only doing so three times in 2021; even more alarmingly, eight of those nine games were MAC games.
Huger preached the gospel of defense this offseason. Senior guard Samari Curtis related a few weeks ago that Huger made clear to the team anyone uninterested in playing defense wouldn’t play. The question becomes whether or not the Falcons will have the pieces for this directive to make a difference. Two of Bowling Green’s top three stealers are gone, along with three of the Falcons’ top four shot blockers. Advanced metrics were not high on any of the returnees — the hope for Bowling Green is that a reliable defensive contributor can emerge from the ranks of the newcomers.
2. Which newcomer(s) can take Bowling Green to the next level?
In search of a clean break with a rough year on and off the court, the Falcons welcome seven newcomers for the 2022-23 season. How they will gel on the court is a mystery, but Bowling Green possesses some intriguing rookies on paper.
Three-star point guard Willie Lightfoot was a significant recruiting coup for a program of the Falcons’ stature, as Alabama, Marquette, and Oregon all offered the Niagara Falls native. Junior forward Sam Towns brings a winning pedigree to Bowling Green after two years with conference rival Ohio.
The most interesting piece to the puzzle, however, may be junior forward Rashaun Agee. Agee, who was originally committed to New Mexico State, went to Casper College in Wyoming and thrived — he was first team All-Region in the NJCAA in 2021-22. He averaged a double-double (20.1 points and 11.5 rebounds per game) and has the ability to provide the Falcons with a new glass-cleaning dimension.
3. How much will we truly learn in the non-conference slate?
At the top, it’s worth acknowledging that the Falcons are hardly avoiding high- and mid-major foes — the opener against Air Force and back-to-back trips to St. Bonaventure and Notre Dame should quash that notion immediately. Still, parts of Bowling Green’s non-conference docket are eye-opening in a negative way — the Falcons play two Division II teams back-to-back in late December, and a pair of teams (Southern Indiana and Queens) in the process of transitioning to Division I.
Granted, Bowling Green could find worse Division II programs to play than Fairmont State and Ohio Dominican -— Fairmont State went 23-8 in 2021-22 and almost beat Bowling Green in an exhibition, while the Panthers struggled but boast a local favorite in former Northview star Alek West. These four games leave the Falcons with just nine conventional non-conference games against 18 MAC games. The unrepresentative nature of some of these tune-up contests may leave a number of questions unanswered ahead of the MAC opener against Eastern Michigan on Jan. 3.
First Published November 6, 2022, 6:06 p.m.
