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It was a win, and on paper a comfortable win. Heck after Filzen drained his first points of the night UB led 5-3 and never trailed. Three bulls were in double digits and Alumni was rocking. So why am I still bothered by what transpired between Buffalo and Central Michigan.
First look at how the other west teams did tonight. Toledo and NIU got destroyed and Akron handled EMU as well, if not better than we did the Chips. Tonight UB faced the best weak team in the conference and for a good portion of the game it was scarey.
When UB was up 15-4 that should have been it, game over. No way should a team with a shot at the MAC Championship be up nine in the early minutes of a game to Central Michigan and then find themselves struggling to hold a lead not 10 minutes later. We've all seen it before UB is cruising along ant hits a lull.
What do you do when a team down by nine is suddenly down by only 2? You don't wait for a media timeout to break the momentum. That's exactly what Coach Witherspoon did, it's what he always does. Throughout the second half whenever Buffalo started running on CMU the Chips called a timeout, collected themselves and pretty much ended the run.
I'm also a little concerned that Mulkey, McCrea, and Watt all were terrible from the field.
FIlzen and Barnett were solid. Barnett had a great game for the Bulls as he finished with 11 points, seven rebounds and a pair of assists. Filzen scored 21 points, including five three-pointers. While Watt was cold from the floor he made up for it with nine rebounds and four blocked shots.
Next up is Kent and the Bulls will not get anywhere unless Mulkey and McCrea show up.