Buffalo’s experience helps in close contests

By Mark Rudi

(Robert Youngs / Western Herald) WMU’s David Kool tries to turn the corner on Buffalo’s Jawaan Alston in Tuesday night’s 74-71 loss. Kool finished with 20 points in the setback.

Western Herald

For the University at Buffalo, close games have become the norm. Tuesday night was no different.
The Bulls (13-5, 5-1 Mid-American Conference) have had so many down to the wire games the past two seasons, their maturity and experience give them the knowledge to get the win.

“Seems like we’ve been playing these last second games for a long time,” UB head coach Reggie Witherspoon said. “What has helped is that we’ve had a lot of them. “

Last season’s matchup against Western Michigan University was one of those close games the Bulls, at that time a young team, have learned from. Buffalo and the Broncos went into double overtime, with WMU picking up the 100-90 victory. The very next game, Buffalo had another double overtime loss, but this time to Central Michigan University.

This season, it’s been déjà vu for the Bulls all over again. The Bulls nearly pulled off an upset over No. 2 University of Connecticut at home, which came down to UB’s last possession of the game. Later this season, senior guard Andy Robinson hit a buzzer beater shot to beat Pepperdine University in overtime and then the next night defeated the University of Colorado 62-60.

“This year we mainly think about us. Last year, we wasn’t mature enough to close the deal,” UB junior guard Rodney Pierce said. “This year, I think we’re a little bit different. As you can see, more mature, which allowed us to close the game.”

“From the kids’ standpoint, it helps them to go through that,” Witherspoon said. “You can teach them and talk, but until they go through it, it’s very difficult to have that awareness and alert level.”

Pierce came up big for the Bulls in the second half, scoring 16 of his 20 points in the final half. Pierce, who was eighth in the MAC in scoring coming into Tuesday night, scored Buffalo’s five out its last eight field goals.

“I kind of knew to help my team I had to be a little more aggressive in the second half,” Pierce said. “So when I got my open looks, I made sure to knock them down.”

After gaining the lead late in the second half, a veteran squad knew how to get the job done on the road in a hostile environment and the Bulls defense forced WMU junior guard David Kool to get a bad look at the game tying shot at the buzzer.

“We didn’t know if we could block a shot,” Witherspoon said. “We just wanted to make it as difficult as he [Kool] could. We wanted to make every possession as difficult as we could.”

UB also had a big help with 36 points for their bench and shooting 53.8 percent in the first half after struggling early. The Bulls also shot 50 percent from behind the arc, with Pierce going three for four, in the second half.

The MAC East leading Bulls passed a very tough test and will continue achieving its goal of winning the MAC and making the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history.

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Posted by HeraldAdmin on Jan 28 2009. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

Cody Kimball
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