“By Vincent Dorsey [email protected] The University of Akron’s men’s basketball team fell to the Bowling Green Falcons 50-46 Saturday in a game that pitted two teams tied atop the Mid-American Conference’s East Division standings against one other. The loss, coupled with the results of the other two MAC East games, put UA in a tie for second in the division with Miami.”
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By Vincent Dorsey

[email protected]

The University of Akron’s men’s basketball team fell to the Bowling Green Falcons 50-46 Saturday in a game that pitted two teams tied atop the Mid-American Conference’s East Division standings against one other.

The loss, coupled with the results of the other two MAC East games, put UA in a tie for second in the division with Miami.

BGSU senior guard Brian Moten hit a long 3-pointer with 1.03 left in the game to give the Falcons a 48-46 lead. The Zips grabbed two offensive rebounds on their next possession, but could get none of their inside shots to fall.

After a missed layup by junior forward Chris McKnight, BGSU’s Nate Miller found Moten down the floor for a breakaway dunk to seal the victory.

We had a rough game, UA head coach Keith Dambrot said. (We) never really got in sync, never got any flow.

UA (18-11, 9-5 MAC) held an 18-8 advantage with 4:39 remaining in the first half, but a 10-0 run by BGSU (17-11, 9-4 MAC) keyed by two 3-pointers by Moten and a slew of Zips’ turnovers helped the Falcons claim a 24-22 halftime lead.

I thought they out-scrapped us early, Dambrot said. I thought they should have been out of here in the first 10 minutes.

The Zips shot 31.7 percent (7-of-22) compared to the Falcons’ 40 percent (10-of-25) from the field in the first period.

Both teams went back-and-forth in the second half with neither team having an advantage larger than five points.

UA was outrebounded 34-31 and outscored 28-to-12 in the paint for the game.

BGSU head coach Louis Orr said his team played solid man-to-man defense down the stretch, after playing zone for most of the game.

We’ve been blessed being able to close games out, man-to-man, Orr said. They manned up at the end, and we got stops. We kind of had a feel for what they were gonna run. We came up with big rebounds.

Dambrot said BGSU’s 2-3 zone was effective primarily because of UA’s shooting woes.

We just have to put the ball in the basket, the fifth-year UA head coach said. Some nights you make it, some nights you don’t. We got 2-for-13 from the McKnights.

Brothers Chris and Brett McKnight, the team’s two go-to players, combined for only 9 points from the field.

While both teams turned the ball over 11 times, UA converted BGSU’s miscues into 13 points while the Falcons scored 17 points off of the Zips’ mistakes.

Moten led all scorers with 17 points, while junior guard Darryl Roberts and freshman Nikola Cvetinovic each scored 8 points to lead the Zips.

UA will resume play Thursday night against the Ohio Bobcats in its final hone contest of the season. Senior Nate Linhart will be honored before the 7 p.m. tipoff

Call senior sports writer Vincent Dorsey:

330-972-7395

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