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Buffalo Bulls Men's Basketball Recap: Takeaways from 87-70 win over Kent State

By Robby Johnson and Matt Gritzmacher
UB Athletics

It was a good day for the men's team as they took home an 87-70 advantage over Kent State. Below is our takeaways:

Robby's Takes

1. The strong redshirt freshman season continues for Smart

He's cooled off a bit since early MAC play but as we mentioned in Basketbulls and Beers, that's typical for a freshman. This was the first game where Smart flirted with a double-double and it's only a sign of what's to come from him in the near and far future. By the time his senior season comes, I expect Ikenna to be a very competitive MAC center.

2. What is CJ's ceiling?

His season isn't over but the last thing that I expected coming into this season was one of the incoming freshman having the ability to score over 20 points in a game. This is now the third regular season game that CJ has done so. Despite the mid-season dry spell, it has been nothing but impressive from the incredibly under recruited freshman from Dallas. I honestly could see him anywhere from a consistent 18ppg player to a 25ppg player by the time his senior year rolls around. I'd imagine it's on the lower end of the spectrum but he proved us all wrong once, it could happen again.

Matt's Takes

1. Bench points
It's in large part thanks to Massinburg, but even so, UB outscored Kent 49-11. Jimmy Hall and Khaliq Spicer were plenty dangerous, combining for 33 points and 16 rebounds, but Kent didn't get much else from others, while Buffalo had three subs in double digits. That's how UB was winning last year, and it's how they've been winning this year.

2. Neither Hamilton, nor anyone else, needs to be the best player on the floor

This is pretty similar to my first point, but even with the scoring balance it's nice to point out that UB succeeds without a clear top player game in and game out.

3. Parts of this performance aren't always replicable

10-23 from distance and 8 blocks may not either happen again this season, let alone in the same game. For the ways this game was typical of Successful UB, it also was highly atypical.

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