Fans that showed up on Tuesday afternoon at Alumni Arena were treated to the women basketball team's best defensive performance of the season.
Shooting woes were the story of the game and Western Michigan (6-17, 2-8 Mid-American Conference) shot 22 percent from the field, including 0-for-15 from 3-point territory. The Bulls (13-10, 6-4 MAC) forced the Broncos' lowest scoring game of the season, defeating them 53 – 39.
The win was the fourth in a row for the Bulls, giving the team its longest win streak since the 2005-06 season. Buffalo allowed WMU just 39 points, surpassing their previous season-best of 42 points allowed in its win against Niagara (1-22, 0-12 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference) in December.
The Bulls haven't been very successful at stopping teams from 3-point range this season, so head coach Linda Hill-MacDonald could not have been more satisfied with the outcome.
"It feels really good [forcing WMU to shoot 0 percent from 3-point range]," Hill-MacDonald said. "We haven't defended the three all that well this year, so I feel really good about that. That might be a first for the season that we've held a team scoreless from beyond the arc."
Coming into the game, WMU averaged 26 points per half but scored only half of that against the Bulls and recorded a deplorable 16 percent from the field, including 0-for-7 from behind the arc in the first half.
Despite a slow start, the Bulls managed to break away and close out the half leading by seven points; thanks, in the most part, to a solid team rebounding effort which included eight boards from Buffalo's all-time leading rebounder, senior forward Kourtney Brown.
Hill-MacDonald admitted that even though the Bulls had the lead at the half, there were some things that the team needed to make adjustments on to secure the victory.
"We really talked about how to attack what they were doing," Hill-MacDonald said. "We were forcing some shots against double and triple teams in the first half and the whole weak side was open, so what we focused on [in the second half] was how to get the ball to the weak side into the hands of open shooters."
The Broncos would rebound early in the second half, cutting the Bulls' lead to only four, but could not maintain their momentum to finish off the game.
Hill-MacDonald said that the team was able to pull off such a dominating win due to the scouting of Western Michigan's players.
"We also talked about being familiar with the tendencies of each of the players," Hill-MacDonald said. "[We needed to know] who the drivers were, know who the 3-point shooters were. So really our focus was personnel. Individually we knew what they [brought] to the table and what we needed to do to stop them."
The Bulls held WMU leading scorer Taylor Manley scoreless, and Hill-MacDonald was very pleased with her team's defensive output as well as its offensive contributions amidst an eight-point game from Brown.
"We knew how they were going to defend her in the block because we had seen it in previous games," Hill-MacDonald said. "I think this team is beginning to understand that people other than Kourtney can contribute and we can win as a team. We don't need to put the pressure on her to be the high scorer every game."
The game's leading scorers, senior forward Jessica Fortman and junior guard Brittany Hedderson, stepped up to alleviate that pressure. The duo was responsible for 5-of-6 long-range baskets in the game for the Bulls, finishing with 19 and 15 points, respectively. They also combined for 13 rebounds to compliment Brown's game-high of 15.
Fortman credited her performance to the team's preparation going into the contest.
"I got a lot of good passes from teammates," Fortman said. "I was getting open looks with Kourtney getting so much pressure inside. It definitely opened up my game a lot. I was just ready to shoot."
The Bulls look to extend their win streak against Northern Illinois (9-14, 3-7 MAC) at 2 p.m. on Saturday in Alumni Arena.
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Photo: Courtesy of UB Athletics
