Bulls Lose Defensive Struggle at Virginia Commonwealth

Buffalo Women’s Basketball and Virginia Commonwealth played a titanic defensive struggle, in which neither team shot well, with the Bulls losing 61–55. Buffalo is now 1–1 on the season.

The only consistent scoring for the Bulls was sophomore guard Dyaisha Fair, who finished with 27 points, but her shooting percentage was low, 9–26 from the floor and 4–13 from beyond the arc. No one else on the Bulls had double digit points, and the Bulls struggled terribly to get any offense going. Even Fair, who played all 40 minutes, went ice cold down the stretch (a common problem throughout Fair’s career at Buffalo), and didn’t score in the last 6:13.

Still, the Bulls led by 6 when Fair made her last basket, and retained a 4 point lead with 2:25 left in the game when senior guard Hanna Hall drove towards the basket as the shot clock wound down, and got fouled with 1 second left on the shot clock. Hall would make both free throws. And then VCU went on a 9–0 run to open up a comfortable lead.

Buffalo cut the lead down to 2 when sophomore forward Loren Christie hit a three point shot immediately off the inbounds pass. Two VCU free throws with 0:16 seconds left opened the lead back to four points. Buffalo’s last chance evaporated after a perfect lob inbounds pass to junior forward Ade Adeyeye was caught cleanly by Adeyeye, and then she missed the 5-foot shot.

How bad was Buffalo’s shooting? 27 percent for the game, and if you take away Fair’s 9-for-26, the rest of the team shot only 22.5%. None of Buffalo’s big players, despite a height advantage on the front line, could dominate in the paint, and they missed inside shot after inside shot.

Notes:

• Fair led Buffalo with 9 rebounds, and also with 5 assists and 4 steals.
• Hall, who was 8-for-12 from beyond the arc in the previous game, was only 2-for-8 from beyond the arc against VCU.
• Buffalo was out-rebounded 49–44.
• VCU shot only 31%, as the Bulls defense did a good job of shutting down their offense.
• Sophomore center Elea Gaba made her first appearance on the court for UB after missing the previous game for personal reasons. She did not score.
• Guards Cheyenne McEvans and Jessika Schiffer both played double-digit minutes and did not score.