2015 MAC Women's Tournament Semifinals: Ohio Bobcats vs Buffalo Bulls Preview

Both of UB's Basketball teams have advanced to the semifinals of their respective MAC Tournaments. That's pretty swell. For the women, who play today at noon, it's their second MAC semifinal in program history.

The noon game comes against the MAC's #1 seed: the Ohio Bobcats. UB is 0-2 against the Bobcats this season, but has not been outclassed. The first loss came in the first game of the season, when the Bobcats just led by a few possessions throughout. and the second much more recently, when Buffalo furiously came back from an awful start to draw within three in the second half, but couldn't get over the hump.

Buffalo Bulls 50, Ohio Bobcats 61: UB Women Drop MAC Opener
Nonconference play is over, and it's time for everyone to step up their game. Saturday afternoon the UB Women's Basketball team opened MAC play with a troubling 61-50 loss to the Ohio Bobcats....

Buffalo Bulls 70, Ohio 78: Turnovers, slow start doom UB Women despite 32 from Mackenzie Loesing
One game after ceding eight three-pointers on 10 attempts vs Miami, UB Women's Basketball would probably have liked a different opponent than the Ohio Bobcats, one of the nation's top teams from...

The keys for UB are simple: get points, and lots of them, from your height advantage, and slow down Ohio's ball movement on the perimeter. The Bulls will have to be responsible on defense, preventing open looks for full possessions.

I'm also looking for UB to get quality minutes from their deeper bench, especially after a tight game yesterday against Western Michigan. If Ayan Bradley, Karin Moss, Mariah Suchan and hopefully even Liisa Ups can play a few quality minutes each, it would go a long way.

Ohio has been the clear class of the MAC this year, and Bob Boldon has done a tremendous job in turning the program around. They are very, very good for a reason, but maybe there's room to be hopeful for two reasons:

(1) Ohio's rise has been so fast that no one on their roster has ever won a game in Cleveland. I'm actually not sure a majority of them have even played in Cleveland in the MAC Tournament, period. UB, on the other hand, has been scrapping through a strange season and has a tight game under their belt already this tournament.

(2) The byes are much less protective of the top seeds on the women's side than they are on the men's. For whatever reason, in three years the #1 seed in the Women's Tournament is 0-3. Why can't it happen again?

Tip is at noon. We'll have the usual in-game coverage on Twitter and postgame piece here. Go Bulls!