Akron Zips up victory in final minutes.

On the back end of a road trip to the Buckeye state, the men's basketball team fell in a close contest to the Akron Zips Sunday afternoon, 66-59.

Head coach Reggie Witherspoon led his team into the unfriendly confines of the James A. Rhodes Arena and battled a raucous crowd for the entire 40 minutes of play.

The Bulls managed to keep the game close in the first half against the Mid-American Conference leading Zips on the back of sophomore guard Eric Moore. Moore notched 15 of the Bulls' 28 first half points, including a 3-for-5 effort from behind the three-point arc.

Senior forward Yassin Idbihi led all scorers with 18 points and turned in a double-double effort by adding his 10th rebound in the waning seconds of the game. Idbihi also moved into ninth place in Buffalo's all time scoring list, passing Curtis Blackmore who also holds the school's rebounding mark.

The Bulls struggled from the field, shooting only 33 percent compared to the Zip's impressive mark of 48 percent.

"We didn't shoot the ball as well as we needed to," said assistant coach Jim Kwitchoff. "But with numbers like that you would have thought we would have gotten beat by more."

The team also struggled with turnovers, handing the ball over 20 times while the Zips only lost the handle on 14 occasions.

"You can crunch all the numbers you want, but the biggest factor was points off turnovers," Kwitchoff said. "We gifted them 15 or 20 points."

The lead changed hands several times in the early going of the second half and the Bulls were able to keep the game competitive as foul trouble began to set in for the Zips. Akron senior guard Dru Joyce was tagged with four early fouls and remained on the bench much of the second half.

The Bulls (9-9, 1-4 MAC) also had their own battle with fouls as senior forward Parnell Smith was forced to leave after receiving his fifth foul late in the second half. However, the more interesting occurrence was when Witherspoon was slapped with an uncharacteristic technical foul with nine minutes to play.

The referee whistled a technical on the Buffalo bench after just a small complaint from the head coach.

"It was the least deserved technical in the history of NCAA basketball, an absolute joke of a call," Kwitchoff said. "If technicals were called like that then each coach would be given a hundred a game."

The Bulls did shine in several phases of the game, obliterating the Zips in rebound production 40-25. 18 of those rebounds came on the offensive end compared to just eight for the Zips (14-4, 4-1 MAC).

"We did a great job with intensity and out-rebounding them," Kwitchoff said. "We also shot very well from the free throw line, you couldn't ask for us to do much better than we did."

Buffalo shot 90 percent from the free throw line, converting 18 of their 20 attempts. Akron meanwhile shot 60 percent, making only 20 of the 33 attempts the Bulls allowed them.

Buffalo will have a hiatus from playing the tough MAC East, as it begins to play the conference's western opponents in the coming weeks. With the season heading into the homestretch, the coaching staff is readying the team for the tough challenge of a week of tournament play in Cleveland at the Quicken Loans Arena.

"I wish we could play Akron again tomorrow, I feel very good about the growth our team is making, and come March 7, I expect to see a much better team," Kwitchoff said.

The Bulls will next be in action Wednesday at Alumni Arena where they will take on the visiting Toledo Rockets in a 7 p.m. contest.