The Bulls are . . .
Buffalo tied its season low with just six turnovers in the game, while UB forced Western Michigan into 16 turnovers. The Broncos came into the game averaging just over 11 a contest. The game was tight for most of the night before the Bulls began to pull away in the second half. Overall, the lead changed hands nine times with eight ties.
Both teams held leads in the first half with the Broncos holding their biggest advantage of the night at 37-32 with 4:30 left. WMU again led by five with just 1:35 remaining in the opening half, but the Bulls would tie it up before the break.
The big play came with just under three seconds remaining when sophomore Ronaldo Segu grabbed an offensive rebound and was fouled on the put back attempt, scoring the three-point play and sending the teams into halftime tied, 41-41.
The two schools were tied at 47-47 in the second half when the Bulls scored on back-to-back dunks from Josh Mballa and Jeenathan Williams, igniting a quick 8-0 run, putting Buffalo ahead 55-47. Western Michigan came back to tie it up at 64-64, but UB scored four straight to regain the lead. Ahead by just two, the Bulls went on a 9-1 run as a three-point play from senior Antwain Johnson put Buffalo ahead 77-67 with 4:25 left.
A fast break dunk from Jayvon Graves gave the Bulls their largest lead of night at 88-75 with just 1:10 left and Buffalo went on to win 90-79.
"Just a really hard-fought win, I mean I thought Western Michigan was really shooting the ball well and finishing the first half we had some guys in foul trouble, so we had to patch some things together. I thought LaQuill came in and gave us good minutes as did the rest of our bench.
"We talk to our guys all the time about closing the gap and we did a good job of that at the end of the half. In the second, we got off to that early run and you can tell our defense was a lot sharper. We were able to get our running game going and when that happens, we really play well."
Graves led the Bulls with 23 points as he turned it on in the second half, scoring 16 of those after the break. He added four assists and three rebounds. Johnson finished with a career-high 21 points, adding four rebounds and a pair of assists. Defensively, Johnson did an outstanding job on WMU's leading scorer Michael Flowers, who went just 3-of-11 with four turnovers.
Sophomore Josh Mballa also reached a career high with 18 points as he added eight boards and three assists. Segu had nine points and four rebounds off the bench, while Williams had his stretch of games in double figures snapped at nine. He finished with eight points and a career best four assists.
Freshman LaQuill Hardnett had eight points and six rebounds off the bench as the Bulls outrebounded Western Michigan, 38-31.
The Bulls held a 56-32 advantage in points in the paint and a 24-8 advantage in points off turnovers.
(Courtesy of UB Athletics)