Down by a point with 13 seconds to play in the first round of the Mid-American Conference Tournament against Toledo on March 10, Buffalo's women's basketball team had a chance to win the game with the ball in the hands of its best player.
???Coming out of a time out at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, senior guard Stephanie Bennett took a shot to give the Bulls the lead, but missed. Rockets forward Allie Clifton collected the rebound and then hit two free throws giving the Rockets a 53-50 victory over the Bulls.
???It was a poor performance offensively for Buffalo, shooting just 33.3 percent from the floor. Bennett played all 40 minutes of the game but was held to just 10 points as she made only four of her 11 field goal attempts. Bennett was also shut out from three-point range, missing all four tries from behind the arc.
???"That game was lost in the first half," said Buffalo head coach Linda Hill-MacDonald. "It was very disappointing for Buffalo offensively in the first half...It took us a while to adjust to the physicality of the game...We really didn't play offensively like we needed to during the first half."
???The Bulls took an early lead but would not be able to hang on to it for very long. Their biggest lead of the game was by five points when they led 12-7 with 12:28 left to play in the first half. From that point on, the Rockets would go on a 20-5 run to close out the half. Toledo's Ta'Yani Clark led the assault with 11 points in the half, nine of those points coming from made three-pointers.
???Buffalo shot just 19.4 percent from the floor in the first half, compared to Toledo's 40.7 percent. Buffalo out-rebounded Toledo 22-20 in the half but Hill-MacDonald thought her team could have been much better.
???"I think the players got a little comfortable in the offensive end and they stopped going to the boards," Hill-MacDonald said. "Rebounds is the key to this game...If maybe we could have rebounded better through the first half and got some more opportunities, we would have settled down offensively a little bit sooner. But Toledo did a great job of keeping us off the boards."
???The Rockets came out strong in the second half and were able to take hold of their largest lead of the game. A three-point shot by Amber Heistan put Toledo up by 13 with 12:48 left in the game.
???Buffalo would chip away at that lead, getting within two points with just 3:28 to go on a jump shot by junior forward Jamie Schiebner. Senior forward Barbora Homolova tied the game at 48 with 1:47 remaining, followed by a time out by Toledo.
???Clark got the ball out of the time out and hit a three-point shot to keep the Rockets in the lead for good. Freshman forward Jessica Fortman cut the lead down to one, 51-50, on the next possession. Clark would lead another charge down the court for Toledo, but missed her jump shot, leading to Bennett's last shot.
???Following Clifton's free throws, the Bulls tried one last time to tie the score with only six seconds left. However, Buffalo ran out of time before they could record an official shot.
???"(Toledo) disrupted the timing of the offense and that was certainly critical in the first half," Hill-MacDonald said. "It was a physical game and we didn't attack back with aggressive cuts, aggressive off-ball movement, we stood around a lot, trying to avoid the contact...We played much more physically in the second half."
???Clark led the Rockets with 16 points in 36 minutes of play. Scotton finished with nine rebounds.
???"Clark just made some shots. She's not normally a three-point shooter. She's a re-bounder and she's scoring off of offensive boards, but today she did some things today that she hadn't done throughout the season," Hill-MacDonald said.
???Turner and Schiebner both recorded double-doubles in the game. Turner led the Bulls with 16 points and added 10 rebounds. Schiebner chipped in 10 points and collected a game-high 12 boards. Bennett was the only other Bull to score in double figures, scoring 10 points.
???The Bulls finished their 2007-08 campaign with a 15-15 record, their best record since 2002-03.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
