"On road to Cleveland, Bulls hope to hurdle Huskies"

For the second year in a row, the UB Bulls will play a home playoff game to start the Mid-American Conference tournament.

UB will face the Northern Illinois Huskies (11-16 overall, 7-11 MAC) in the first round, for the third year in a row.

Despite their opponent's losing record, the Bulls are not looking past the Huskies heading into Cleveland.

"If you look at the teams that are so-called bottom teams, Marshall won (Saturday), Northern (Illinois) lost in overtime, Central (Michigan) won (Saturday), and Eastern (Michigan) lost in overtime," said Bulls' head coach Reggie Witherspoon. "Obviously those teams are coming in thinking they can win.

Much like last year, when the Bulls went into the Tournament having won seven games in a row, Buffalo is hot going into the tournament this year. UB has won six of its last seven games, with the lone loss coming at Ohio last Wednesday.

Buffalo is coming off of an emotional 72-56 victory against Akron on Saturday. The team bid farewell to its seniors after that game, although they will return for one last game at Alumni Arena on Monday.

"We just need to continue our aggressiveness and blend a pretty good defensive performance with some really good offensive execution," said Witherspoon.

UB will look to get that offensive execution out of Turner Battle, currently leading the Bulls in scoring, averaging 15.5 points per game this season.

But Battle won't be the only Bull who has to step up on Monday, as UB will look for a repeat performance from Daniel Gilbert, who had 17 points and nine rebounds against Akron on Saturday.

If UB can rebound the ball the way they did against the Zips, they will be successful against NIU.

Two Bulls, Yassin Idbihi and Mario Jordan, had 10 rebounds on Saturday, and Gilbert added nine. In total, the Bulls had 55 rebounds, with 19 of those coming on the offensive glass.

Northern Illinois, on the other hand is coming off of a close overtime loss against Toledo, a team that beat the Huskies on their home court on senior night, snapping a six-game winning streak.

Mike McKinney, who averages 12.6 points and 6.1 rebounds per game, leads the Huskies. The Bulls will also have to keep tabs on Todd Peterson and Anthony Maestranzi, two players who are shooting 45 percent and 37 percent respectively from beyond the arc.

The last time UB has come out in its zone defense was against Marshall, who is another top 3-point shooting team. As a team, NIU shoots 39.2 percent from the land of plenty, and is known to be able to turn it on at any point in the game.

In their visit to Alumni Arena earlier this year, the Huskies lost to the Bulls by a slim 86-80 margin. Despite the fact that Buffalo has won the last three meetings between the two teams, the Huskies still lead the all-time series 12-6.

The Bulls and Huskies will tip-off at Alumni Arena tonight at 7 p.m. It will be the Bulls' four seniors' last game ever at Alumni Arena.