"Lowly Chippewas upset Bulls due to short bench, foul trouble"

Four minutes into the game, that's when the gloves came off. Or in Reggie Witherspoon's case, the jacket.

Buffalo's head coach had a tough afternoon at Alumni Arena on Saturday as the Bulls lost 71-61 to a young team that entered the game winless in the conference.

"Central Michigan completely outworked us," said an irate coach Witherspoon, who tends to show his frustration by taking off his suit jacket. "We got taken out of our game."

Buffalo started the game with a 13-game home winning streak and a 3-2 Mid-American Conference record. The Chippewas entered Alumni Arena 0-6 in the MAC. On paper, the match-up seemed lopsided, but on the court it was a struggle for the short-staffed and foul-laden Bulls.

"We have kids that aren't shaving and are still being fed by bottles," said Central Michigan head coach Jay Smith. "We're just trying to grow them up a little bit. This obviously is a feather in our cap but it's nothing that we're going to base our season on."

Yassin Idbihi was the first Bull to experience foul trouble. The junior center started the game with a jumper for a 2-0 UB lead but by the time the half expired, he had been on the court for just four minutes, relegated to the bench due to two fouls.

"Once we have to make substitutions because of fouls, we're in trouble," Witherspoon said. "I've looked and I've stared down that bench. I've looked and I've looked and I've looked but what I'm looking at is not going to change. We have a lot of guys with a lot of inexperience.

At the half, the Bulls (13-4, 3-3 MAC) found themselves down 27-17.

"We should be down 30 in 20 minutes if Yassin plays four minutes," Witherspoon said. "It's just the way it is if he gets two fouls in four minutes. We took him out after the first foul so it's not just like he picked up two quick ones back to back."

"I think what I'm going to try and do in practice on Monday is ask him to try and foul on purpose and time him," Witherspoon continued. "I just want to see how fast you can commit two fouls because doing it in four minutes is hard. Even trying to do it is hard."

Idbihi ended the game playing the entire second half, scoring 11 points and grabbing six rebounds.

Central Michigan (3-12, 1-6 MAC) increased its lead to 22 with two Sefton Barrett free throws at 17:28 in the second half, capping off a 21-3 Chippewa run spanning the two halves. Barrett finished the game with 20 points and game-high 14 rebounds while Giordan Watson chipped in a team-high 25 for the Chippewas.

Buffalo senior guard Calvin Cage scored the next basket of the game, a jumper at 16:47. Cage then played a large role in the 26-9 Bulls run over the next nine minutes, deflating CMU's lead to three.

Just as it was hurt in the first half by fouls, Buffalo took another blow with 5:34 remaining when Cage, the team's leading scorer with 25, raked in his fifth and disqualifying foul.

"I was even motioning to Calvin as he picked his player up in the full court that he had four but it's loud," Witherspoon said. "I said to our guys that you have to take the good with the bad. The energy from the crowd was terrific but it will be harder to communicate so we have to fight it."

"I didn't know I had four fouls but I'm sure that someone told me," Cage said. "I believe I picked up the fourth one the play that I got hurt so I really didn't realize that I had four fouls."

Cage went up to block a shot by Watson with 6:39 left, fouled him, and in the process took a knee to the side, causing him to drop to the court in pain.

"He kneed me in my side, kind of in the mid-section, down by the hip pointer, kind of. I just couldn't catch my breath. That's why I was laying down," Cage said. "I was just trying to catch my breath."

Buffalo faltered at the foul line in the second half, making 10 of 19 shots from the charity stripe. Following the game, the team got a message of humility from Witherspoon.

"Let's not fool ourselves here. We may win a few basketball games but we're not any better than anyone else. We're just not," Witherspoon said. "We're not any worse than anyone else either, but I want to quell the perception that Central isn't winning, so they're not good but we're winning so we are good. We're not better than anyone else. We don't play well, we're going to lose. If they play well, they can win. It doesn't matter who it is."

UB heads to Bowling Green on Tuesday for its next game. Tip-off is at 7 p.m.