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Last season the Bowling Green Falcons finished the season with a record of 13-19 and 7-11 in the MAC. The team struggled to score and by the end of a lot of games they were exhausted and couldn’t close out close games. This season, they are still young, but not quite as young.
Demajeo Wiggins is the team’s leading returning scorer, with 10 points per game. He was the team’s leading rebounder with 7.8 rebounds per contest. The 6’10 Wiggins has improved tremendously while at Bowling Green, but there are still ways for him to get even better.
Rodrick Caldwell and Dylan Frye were freshmen last season and were the starting back court by the end of the year. 6’5 Antwon Lillard struggled to shoot the ball last season, but still managed nearly 8 points per contest.
These 4 players form a solid core to go along with an impressive freshman class. The Falcons also get Justin Turner and Jeffery Uju back from injury. All of this makes for a team that could be extremely competitive this season. Matt Fox, a former walk on, also adds to the depth.
As Frye and Caldwell gain even more experience, I expect Wiggins and Lillard to get better looks which, along with help from the new faces, will help take care of the scoring woes from last season. 6’9, 260 pound freshman forward Derek Koch comes in as the all time Ohio high school leader in rebounds. I think his addition to the team will give Wiggins more room to operate in the paint, too.
In their 83-53 exhibition game win against Capital this season, Wiggins had 17 points and 13 rebounds, while Frye led the team with 23 points on 8-11 shooting. Turner led the team with 5 assists and added 11 points.
The non-conference schedule for this team isn’t going to make any “most difficult” lists. That should give this young team plenty of room to find out where to put all the pieces to the puzzle going into the MAC season. I expect Wiggins to have a first team All-MAC type of season, and the team to be just north of .500 in the MAC. Coupled with a lot of wins in the non-conference, my expectation is that the Falcons will be playing in some sort of post season.