Jet-lagged Bulls win by a nose

It wasn't pretty. The Bulls missed lay-ups. UB's star point guard Turner Battle got in early foul trouble and spent half the game on the bench. UB's twin towers collided when Mark Bortz bloodied his nose after crashing into Yassin Idbihi.

But UB played strong team defense and got some clutch free throws down the stretch from Battle to give the Bulls a narrow 52-49 victory over Fresno State.

"It is a great win. Any time we can come on the road through all the travel and all the adversity and play in a building with 11,000-plus people rooting against us and be able to battle out where we're not just shooting the lights out," said UB head coach Reggie Witherspoon.

The Bulls (17-7 overall, 9-6 Mid-American Conference) traveled to Fresno State (14-10, 8-6 Western Athletic Conference) as part of ESPN's Bracket Buster Saturday, an event created three years ago to give national attention to mid-major teams on the verge of making the NCAA tournament in March.

After going into halftime down 33-27, Buffalo came back in the second half. Fifty-two points is the lowest score the Bulls have posted this season, while Fresno connected on a season-low 16 field goals, only hitting one shot from the field in the last nine and a half minutes.

"We were dragging a little bit but we kept battling down the other end," said Witherspoon. "I think the fact that we kept coming at them, they got a little tired as well because the big fellow (Mustafa Al-Sayyad) missed a dunk himself."

Al-Sayyad, a 6-foot-9-inch senior center, attempted a dunk with 4:34 left in the game that would have given his team a one point advantage in a game with eight lead changes. After blocking a school record 11 shots, he hung too long on the rim after his dunk and was called for the offensive interference, blocking his own shot from counting.

Roderick Middleton then came up big for the Bulls, draining a three to put Buffalo up by four with 4:26 remaining. The game would meet at a 49-49 tie after an Al-Sayyad jumper at 1:43 but Turner Battle would be fouled twice within the last 15 seconds and his 3-for-4 free throw outing would be a key factor in the outcome of the game.

The Bulls enjoyed relative success on the defensive end throughout the game, with Middleton creating the biggest defensive play of the night.

"(Middleton) really gave us a jump off the bench," said Witherspoon. "The blocked dunk was unbelievable. Those are the things that we point out on film, you talk about them and you can go over and over them again in practice but it was great to be able to win it on the defensive end of the floor."

The blocked dunk came at 11:40 in the first half. Middleton, who faced Dwight O'Neil one-on-one on a fast break, got enough air to reject O'Neil's attempt to dunk over him. Middleton's stop earned him the number eight spot on the top 10 plays of the day on ESPN's SportsCenter.

Middleton, who came off the bench after starting the last 18 games for the Bulls, posted 11 points and four rebounds.

The Bulls' consistent floor leader, Battle, who was averaging 15.8 points a game before Saturday's contest, put only six points on the board. He hit a three within the first 20 seconds of regulation and wouldn't score again until he was at the line with just 15 seconds remaining in the game.

Battle - who played just 21 minutes, nearly 15 less than his average - was in foul trouble early in the first half and had four fouls with over 14 minutes to go in the second half. This was only the fourth time this season Battle scored in single digits.

Bortz posted eight points and grabbed three rebounds, while shooting 3-for-11 from the field in 17 minutes of play.

Yassin Idbihi had the team high in points and rebounds, scoring 13 points and grabbing a game-high nine boards. Idbihi was 5-for-13 from the field and 2-for-2 from the free-throw line, including one occasion where the sophomore was sent to the line just seconds after a second half collision with Bortz.

Idbihi and Bortz were a bit shaken up by the crash; Bortz left with a bloody nose. Both players, however, were able to participate in the rest of the game.

Idbihi also grabbed five of Buffalo's 15 steals, tying for the game high with Daniel Gilbert. Gilbert's five steals matched his career high, while Idbihi's five replaced his old career high of two.

UB made 34.3 percent of their shots in the first half and then came out for the second half and got worse, shooting an abysmal 18.8 percent from the field.

However, after going just 1-2 from the line in the first half, Buffalo made 91.7 percent of their free throws in the second half, shooting 11-for-12.

Fresno State's leading scorer, Ja'Vance Coleman, spent the majority of the game on the bench, suffering from a right Achilles tendon injury sustained during the Bulldogs' victory over Tulsa last Wednesday. Coleman, who typically scores 17.4 points a game, was out of the starting lineup and the scoring column, going 0-for-2 from the floor.

Scoring a game-high 15 points for the Bulldogs was O'Neil, who only posted two points in the second half. Donovan Morris had nine rebounds for Fresno State, tying with Al-Sayyad and Idbihi for the game-high off the glass.

Buffalo will get back to playing within their own conference this Wednesday when they travel to Huntington, W.Va to face the Marshall Thundering Herd for the last time during conference play, as the Herd moves to Conference USA next year. Tip off is slated for 7 p.m.