Buffalo Bulls Women’s Basketball dismantles Kent State 77-62 to move up to second in the MAC East. JoAnna Smith ties a career high 31 points.

In dominating fashion, Buffalo Bulls Women’s Basketball brought in a win against the Kent State Golden Flashes 77-62. The Bulls saw one of their best performances from the bench in a while and JoAnna Smith has continued her utter dominance in conference play.

UB did not give the Flashes any chance of this being a close game once it started. In less than three minutes, JoAnna Smith threw eight points up onto the score board which included two three-pointers. Add in a Stephanie Reid layup and the Bulls already had a 10-0 advantage in this one.

As the first quarter went on, JoAnna Smith continued to sink shots and Mariah Suchan also got in the mix after being inserted into the starting lineup in place of an injured Cassie Oursler.

Reid soon got into foul trouble and the Bulls had to lean on Liisa Ups at the point and she did not disappoint. UB continued to stretch their lead for the rest of the half Courtney Wilkins was in rhythmn. She dropped 10 in the second quarter alone.

But, the best part going into the half was defense executed on Kent State’s leading scorer Lurken. Averaging 23.5 points per game, she didn’t have a single marker to her name after twenty minutes.

With a 39-23 advantage coming out of the half, UB booked it and quickly put up a lot of easy shots like clockwork thanks to Smith, Reid, Hemphill, and Suchan. Although the offense quieted down a little after that, UB for the most part had the game well in hand.

Kent State’s Lurken did find her groove midway in the fourth quarter but it was all too late. Despite hitting consecutive shots and getting to the line, the deficit her team faces was still 10 with 3:30 to go. UB saw a clutch layup from Smith in transition to all but seal the game from there.

Buffalo shot an impressive 48% on the night and uncharacteristically did an amazing job running the floor on offense. 21 of UB’s points tonight were through fast break efforts.

Leading the Bulls as usual was JoAnna Smith—tying a career high 31 points on the night. Smith is still averaging 24 points in the past five games. If that isn’t worthy of being in contention for MAC Player of the year, I don’t know what is. Courtney Wilkins also finished with a career high of her own with 13 points on 5-7 shooting.

Pulling themselves into a tie for second in the MAC East with the win, Buffalo now takes a full week break before they resume action. The Bulls will play next Saturday in Alumni against Northern Illinois—the class of the MAC West right now. Tip-off will be at 2:00 PM for that game.