Just 10 minutes after Buffalo defeated Youngstown State at Alumni Arena, Penguins head coach Jerry Slocum summed up the entire game.
"[Buffalo's forwards] are bigger, stronger than ours," Slocum said. "Their bigs were better than ours, and that was really the ball game."
Those bigs led Buffalo (6-2) to an 80-72 victory.
Youngstown State (6-3, 1-1 Horizon League) won't soon forget their names: Mitchell Watt and Javon McCrea. The two forwards, slated at 6-foot-10 and 6-foot-7 respectively, simply overpowered the Penguins on Saturday night. McCrea put up 29 points and 13 boards; Watt finished with 20 and 10 (and four blocks).
"We wanted to attack them inside," Watt said. We felt we'd have an advantage on them. We're bigger than them. We knew their strength was on the perimeter."
And did Watt ever attack. He sent back any shot in his area, including one eye-opening fast break rejection that sent Alumni Arena into a frenzy. Watt made sure fans stayed on the edge of their seats, throwing down a put-back slam late in the second half that iced the game. The dunk even shocked McCrea, who said he was blown away with Watt's power.
Not to be outdone, McCrea put on a show of his own. The ever-heralded sophomore was entirely unstoppable. He finished the first half with 17 points and seven boards in just 12 minutes of action, but his time was limited because of foul trouble.
He wouldn't let fouls ruin his night, snatching rebounds left and right and connecting on 14-of-17 field goals. The phenom put together one of his most impressive performances to date, and there are many to pick from. He said that he felt he would score whenever he touched the ball, but he feels that way every game.
Head coach Reggie Witherspoon said this one was purely a matchup game. The Penguins prefer to play four guards and one true post player, and that strategy backfired, as Buffalo outscored Youngstown State 42-18 in the paint.
The Bulls played a 2-3 zone for the majority of the first half and the Penguins made them pay, hitting 8-of-20 threes. The Penguins didn't hesitate to let it fly from beyond the arc. Buffalo switched to a man-to-man defense in the second half, and Youngstown State didn't get nearly as many open looks from downtown. At the end of the night, the Penguins finished 14-for-35 from three-point range.
On the offensive end, senior guard Zach Filzen won't jump off the stat sheet (11 points), but he hit 3-of-4 3-pointers and picked his spots. The sharpshooter took the back seat to his team's big men, as Youngstown State really focused on stopping Filzen.
"Zach's a great team player and he likes to shoot when he's open, and he took some really good shots today," Watt said. "He knows if we have a strength down in the post and maybe a little of a mismatch, we're going to attack them."
As has been the case a lot this year, the team struggled to find a fourth scorer. Filzen, Watt, and McCrea scored Buffalo's first 26 points and 35 of 38 first half points. They finished with 66 of the 80 points.
Buffalo continued to clean the glass, out-rebounding the Penguins 45 to 34. The Bulls shot 50 percent (29-of-58) from the floor. Junior guard Tony Watson (eight points) came off the bench as per usual behind sophomore guard Jarod Oldham (five points), but Watson played more yet again – 28 minutes to Oldham's 25. It'll be interesting to see if Watson starts in the future.
The Bulls are a little banged up as they head into a 10-day break. Sophomore guard Aurum Nuiriankh, who made his first start in the squad's last game against Niagara, injured his ankle in practice on Thursday. He's expected to be back for the Bulls' next game. Freshman forward Xavier Ford was hurt during warm-ups, and it's unclear if he'll miss any time (he didn't play on Saturday).
While the long break might hurt Buffalo's rhythm, having won two straight and four of five, Witherspoon sees the layoff as a positive.
"We'd like to just keep in a rhythm of games, but we also realize [the players] need some down time too for studying," Witherspoon said. "We could use some time off to heal up."
The Bulls will finally be back on Tuesday, Dec. 20 at BYU (11-2) at 9 p.m.
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