UB Women’s Basketball loses to #1 South Carolina

UB Women’s Basketball team, facing a much taller opponent, #1 ranked South Carolina, and dealing with their own foul trouble, struggled during most of the game and wound up losing 88–60. This was the first round of the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament. Buffalo is now 1–1 on the season.

The Bulls trailed by 3 at the end of the first quarter, thanks to 8 points and 2 assists from junior guard Dyaisha Fair, all coming in a four minute stretch. But Buffalo could not stop South Carolina’s 6–5 forward Aliyah Boston, who also had 8 points in the period.

Buffalo’s starting front line, super-senior Summer Hemphill and senior Ade Adeyeye each got into early foul trouble. Adeyeye picked up two fouls in the first 7 minutes in the first quarter, and Hemphill picked up her second foul 11 minutes into the game. Both sat the remainder of the half. And by the end of the second quarter, South Carolina had pushed the lead to 12, with Boston ending the half with 19 points. Although it is likely that the very tall Gamecocks would have dominated inside had Adeyeye and Hemphill remained in the game, their absence made things worse for the Bulls.

Both Hemphill and Adeyeye returned for the third quarter, and both picked up their third foul in the first minute. Hemphill picked up her fourth foul with 7:27 left and Adeyeye picked up her fourth foul two minutes later. South Carolina pushed their lead to 18 at the end of the third quarter, and then they continued to dominate the fourth quarter.

The Bulls were out-rebounded 49–26, and outshot from the floor 57.6% to 32.8%. A more positive statistic for the Bulls was that the #1 team in the country could only force 12 UB turnovers.

Fair led the Bulls with 22 points, while sophomore guard Cheyenne McEvans had 10 points and junior forward Loren Christie had 9. Fair, despite being the smallest player on the court for Buffalo, led the team with 7 rebounds. McEvans had 6.

Notes:

• Buffalo plays #8 Oklahoma on Sunday, November 21at 7:30pm (FloHoops) in the second round of the tournament.
• While Fair had been nominated for an award for being the best player in the country at her position (point guard), all five South Carolina starters were nominated for awards at their positions.
• Buffalo was the only mid-major program selected to compete at this year’s Battle 4 Atlantis tournament, the other programs all belonging to Power 5 conferences or in the case of Big East team #2 ranked Connecticut, they play at such a high level that in effect, they are as good as any Power 5 team (and better than most).