Seniors Chelsea Albert, Lauren Prochaska, Kelly Zuercher, Tracy Pontius, Jen Uhl and Maggie Hennegan helped lead us to the best start in BG and MAC History!With a 73-64 road win at Butler in the historical Hinkle Fieldhouse, we ended the non-conference portion of our 2010-11 schedule, and what a memorable one! With a record of 12-1, we set the record for the best start in BGSU (and MAC) Women’s Basketball history!
Sometimes you have to take one step back to take two steps forward, and, in this case, 12 steps forward. After a disappointing opening road loss at Evansville to start the season, we have rolled off 12 straight wins, setting not only the BGSU record for the most non-conference wins in a season, but the MAC record as well! Some of the highlights of this tremendous streak:
- Defeated Missouri Valley power Creighton by 26 points.
- Defeated a very talented Oakland squad by 34. Oakland has taken Penn State to Overtime, and beaten Illinois and Clemson as well.
- Beat a Detroit squad that was 2-0 with two double-digit victories against MAC schools by 25. Detroit recently beat Michigan in Ann Arbor by almost 20 points.
- Won the Seattle tournament, including a hard-fought 9 point win over Arkansas Little Rock, an NCAA Tournament team and picked to win their half of the Sun Belt.
- Defeated #23 Vanderbilt at home in front of a fantastic crowd by double-digits.
- Swept a 2 game, 4 day road trip down south, including a tough win at Western Kentucky, picked to win their half of the Sun Belt.
- Set the record by defeating a talented Butler team, at the infamous Hinkle Fieldhouse. Butler, yet another team that made the post-season last year, came into the game undefeated at home this year, and had only lost at home 6 times over the last 3 seasons.
In addition to these highlights, there were several other notable achievements within this outstanding run:
- With the 12-1 record, we had our 9th straight winning non-league record, the only MAC school to have ever achieved this.
- It was the 5th consecutive season BG has won at least 10 non-league games.
- Senior Lauren Prochaska set the NCAA National Record for Most Consecutive Free Throws Made with 70 in a row.
- Senior Tracy Pontius scored her 1000th point with her first basket on the season, and moved into the Top 20 in all-time scoring at BG.
- With a 7-0 home record, we have now run our regular-season home winning streak to 36 consecutive games.
- Overall we’ve now won 20 in a row at Anderson Arena, one of the 10 longest current streaks in the nation.
- In the most recent NCAA Statistical update, we are #1 in the country in free throw percentage.
- We are 6th in the nation in fewest turnovers per game.
We are very, very proud of the team and a historical non-conference run, but as Coach Miller told the team after the Butler game:
“Enjoy what you’ve done – you’ve made history, and no one can ever take that away from you. But remember, MAC play is really all that matters, and tomorrow when we wake up, non-conference is over, and all 12 teams in the MAC are 0-0.”
MAC play opens Wednesday, January 5th, as we travel to Athens, Ohio, to take on the Bobcats. Our first home MAC game is that following Saturday, January 8th, against rival Miami. Come on out and show your support for the team as we make a run at an unprecedented 7th straight MAC Championship!
