Coming into Thursday's road game at Bowling Green, the men's basketball team had only won one game at Anderson Arena.
Senior guard Sean Smiley made sure his team, with many players ailing from sickness, left Bowling Green with a hard-fought MAC road victory to help ease the aching.
With the game tied at 65-apiece with the clock winding down, Smiley, who finished 4-for-8 from 3-point range, sank a high arching 3-pointer with 4.7 seconds left to give the Bulls the lead. Bowling Green (7-6, 0-2 Mid-American Conference) was unable to answer, securing a Buffalo (9-4, 2-0 MAC) 68-65.
'[Rodney Pierce] kept saying to Smiley to be ready to shoot, so we put rod at the point and he drew people to him,' said head coach Reggie Witherspoon. 'It was something we've looked at before, and it worked out this time.'
Buffalo is now 2-0 in MAC play for the first time since the 2001-02 season. The team is riding a hot streak and has now won six of their last seven contests.
The Bulls came into the game with numerous players hindered by a winter sickness. This included senior guard Rodney Pierce, who did not let his clogged nasal passages disrupt his hot streak.
Pierce topped the 20-point mark for the seventh-straight game, finishing with 21 points. He also added six assists and three steals.
'[Rodney] was a little under the weather tonight,' Witherspoon said 'He was really big tonight. This was one of his better games because he did so many things.'
Smiley came off the bench to score 14 points in 17 minutes. Senior forward Calvin Betts mustered eight points, five rebounds – all offensive boards – and three assists. Senior guard John Boyer chipped in nine points, all coming in the opening minutes of the game, seven rebounds and six assists.
Forward Scott Thomas led Bowling Green with a career-high 21 points and 10 rebounds. Guard Dee Brown added 13 points for the Falcons.
The Bulls are now 2-9 all-time at Anderson Arena. It was the team's first win in the arena since the 2005-06 season.
'Wins [at Anderson Arena] are hard to come by, and usually games here come down to the wire,' Witherspoon said. 'This is not a very easy place to play.'
But Buffalo captured another victory and moves into its highly-anticipated contest with Akron with confidence. The Bulls return home for a Sunday match-up with the Zips, the defending MAC Champions who knocked off Buffalo 65-53 in the MAC Championship in Cleveland last March.
Akron comes into the match-up on top of the MAC standings. They have the same 2-0 conference record as the Bulls, but are 12-4 overall this season and have won eight of their last nine games.
'They do not get any easier,' Witherspoon said. 'We can turn our attention to [the Zips] and strap up the chin straps.'
The MAC Championship-rematch is slated for a 2:00 start Sunday at Alumni Arena.
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Photo: Breadchastick / Wikimedia Commons
