The dejection and disappointment on the faces of the men's basketball team's players Saturday night said it all. Some were in tears while others were just trying to comprehend what went wrong.
But the Mid-American Conference Championship was more about what went right for the Akron Zips and during the course of the game it seemed as if the opposing Zips were not going to be denied their first MAC Tournament Championship.
Frustrating defense and lights-out shooting suffocated the Bulls (22-11, 11-5 MAC) all night long and pushed Akron (23-12, 10-6 MAC) into the NCAA Tournament field with a 65-53 win at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland Saturday night.
"They got hot, they made some tough shots," said head coach Reggie Witherspoon. "When they got hot we seemed to want to come right back and take the first shot that was available, and it broke our concentration a little. That was a big part of it"
Buffalo was unable to find a groove early on and it cost them. The Bulls were able to score the first basket of the game to give them an early lead, but the 2-0 advantage proved to be the only lead Buffalo would experience Saturday.
After that point Akron's hot shooting began. Sparked by the return of injured point guard Anthony "Humpty" Hitchens, Akron was able to find holes in the Buffalo defense and converted on open shots. The Zips shots 55 percent from the floor and never slowed down after scoring at will early in the first half to put the No.5 seed in the MAC up by eight points at half.
"We were down eight at halftime and they're shooting lights out, and you say they can't continue to shoot like this. Then there's 10 minutes to go in the game and they're still shooting like that," Witherspoon said.
At some point it was on the Buffalo defense to force the Zips into stops. They tried putting quicker guys in and quickening the pace, but Akron already found rhythm and nothing knocked them out of it.
On the other end the Bulls offense was inept and failed to threaten Akron's large lead. Buffalo started slow and was unable to get on track. They shot just 36.7 percent from the field only made three of their 16 3-point shots.
"In games you're going to go into slumps where you can't hit shots but you just have to find your rhythm," said junior forward Calvin Betts. "I thought Akron had a good rhythm with their offense and we rushed a lot of stuff."
For a team that prides itself on defense and rebounding, the lack of a leader on offense cost them dearly against the Zips. Junior guard Rodney Pierce, the Bulls' leading scorer this season, had an off-night. The First Team All-MAC selection shot just 1-for-9 and scored just four points.
But Witherspoon thought his defense could not get any crucial stops and made it hard for his team to score.
"It affected us that we didn't have a guy that could come out and score a whole lot of points. What got us here was defense and rebounding and we rebounded the ball today, but they made shots," he said.
It did not help that Akron was not phased by anything Witherspoon and the Bulls threw at them.
"They shot threes like they were free throws and for a while they were shooting free throws like they were lay-ups, so when that happens it breaks down everything that we're doing," he said.
On the other side of the coin, the Zips were able to ease the pain felt during previous MAC Championships. They dropped a heartbreaker to Miami (OH) in 2007 and fell to Kent State in 2008.
But the third try proved to be a charm as the Zips are now going dancing for the first time since 1986.
A celebratory Keith Dambrot, head coach of the Zips, was not short of compliments towards the Bulls and Witherspoon.
"I think [the Bulls] have high character guys. They played really hard," he said. "I think Reggie is an unbelievable coach. I'm happy they got it turned around this year."
Buffalo still has a chance at postseason tournament like that National Invitational Tournament (NIT), but the loss was a heartbreaking one for seniors Greg Gamble, Andy Robinson, Vadim Feditov and Brian Addison.
All four guys came in to help Buffalo get to their first NCAA Tournament and to end up just one win away broke each of their spirits.
"For them to be apart of the turnaround and to go through what they went through to get it done was remarkable," Witherspoon said. "We wanted it to end differently, but they gave us great effort."
Photo: Breadchastick / Wikimedia Commons
