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After a promising win against Kent, Buffalo journeyed out to Ypsilanti only to be crushed in the second quarter by Eastern Michigan. UB now sits at 1-2 in MAC play and will need to take advantage of one of the very few home games in this road heavy stretch of conference play. This time around, the Bulls will face the Central Michigan Chippewas in a MAC Championship rematch. Both teams have had rough starts to the season. The Chippewas failed to generate any momentum early in the going but they are coming off of a strong win vs. Akron.
Quick Facts
Opponent: Central Michigan
Head Coach: Keno Davis (127-112, 4th year with Central Michigan)
Date/Time: 1/16/16, 3:30 PM
Home/Away: Home
Opponent's Mascot: A Chippewa, a member of the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe
Current Record: 9-7 (2-1 MAC)
2014-15 Season Record: 23-9 (12-6 MAC)
Postseason: Lost to Louisiana Tech in Round 1 of the NIT
All-Time Series: Directional Michigan leads 15-14
Opponent's Roster and Stats
| Player | Position | Height | MIN | PPG | RPG | APG | FG% | FT% | 3P% |
| Braylon Rayson | G | 5'9" | 31.6 | 17.4 | 3.4 | 2.3 | 0.437 | 0.836 | 0.42 |
| Chris Fowler | G | 6'1" | 33.6 | 15.4 | 3.8 | 5.3 | 0.444 | 0.797 | 0.211 |
| Rayshawn Simmons | G | 6'4" | 34 | 14.2 | 4.6 | 5.7 | 0.458 | 0.612 | 0.256 |
| John Simons | F | 6'8" | 33.9 | 10.4 | 6.9 | 1 | 0.389 | 0.75 | 0.375 |
| Josh Kozinski | G | 6'4" | 23.8 | 8.5 | 2.4 | 0.8 | 0.365 | 0 | 0.358 |
| Luke Meyer | F | 6'11" | 20.7 | 8.4 | 5 | 0.3 | 0.582 | 0.719 | 0.263 |
| Austin Stewart | G | 6'6" | 18.5 | 5.1 | 3.7 | 0.5 | 0.464 | 0.714 | 0.19 |
| Corey Redman | G | 6'5" | 6.7 | 3.1 | 1.9 | 0.1 | 0.519 | 0.5 | 0.583 |
| DaRohn Scott | F | 6'9" | 10.7 | 2.5 | 2.9 | 0 | 0.667 | 0.348 | 0 |
| Totals | -- | 79 | 36 | 14 | 0.451 | 0.702 | 0.361 |
Central Michigan is going to be a good test for Buffalo's defense. It's currently eighth in the nation for three pointers made per game. With that being said, they also chuck up a lot of threes, which is almost one half of the shots they make. This is one of the harder teams to predict in the MAC right now because Chris Fowler was out for a lot of non-conference play and CMU struggled without him. The man to watch in this one is Josh Kozinski though. Kozinski absolutely rained three pointers on us last season and if the defense isn't better, it'll be much of the same.
Notable Opponents
- 3 Non-Division I opponents
- Their schedule was bad....
Can We Win?
I'd say 60-40 UB on this one. We've done a great job defending from three this season and if we take the same approach as the MAC Championship game last season and shut down everyone but Fowler, I could see us winning pretty easily.