After an electrifying road victory against Northern Illinois on Sunday, the Buffalo Bulls (7-9, 3-5 Mid-American Conference) looked to tack on another conference victory against the Akron Zips (9-7, 3-5 MAC) Wednesday night in Alumni Arena.
What stood in their way was Zips swingman, and defending MAC player of the week, Derrick Tarver, who averaged 30 points in his two previous games.
But UB's biggest star, Turner Battle, turned up the defensive juice and limited Tarver to just 20 points while going for a career-high 26 points with six assists off an awe-inspiring 9-12 (4-4 from downtown) shooting performance in the 89-83 UB win.
"I don't know if that was his best game," said Buffalo head coach Reggie Witherspoon of Battle. "But it was sure a very good game. The best is yet to come."
The game was decided in the interior however, as the Bulls out-rebounded the Zips by a 31-17 margin. Mark Bortz, who shot a jaw-dropping 9-10 from the field, provided Buffalo with a solid game off the bench once again.
Bortz and Battle combined to go 18-22, spurring Buffalo's scintillating 63 percent field goal accuracy.
Bortz' inspired play earned him a double-double, with twenty points and ten rebounds, seven of which were brought down on the offensive end. Freshman Yassin Idbihi also chipped in with eleven points and four rebounds.
"They really outplayed us in almost every facet of the game," said Akron head coach Dan Hipsher. "They shot well, they moved the ball well, and we just couldn't get stops."
It was Tarver's eleven consecutive point scoring spree in the first half that forced Witherspoon to place his best defender, Battle, on him in hopes to stop the bleeding.
Tarver scored a meager six points in the second half.
"He's a great player," said Battle of Tarver. "He can shoot, and he's strong. But we were trying to eliminate his easy shots around the basket and make him shoot it from the outside. We knew he could hit a couple of threes, but he couldn't hit them all night long."
With 10:45 left in the second half, Bortz powered down a crowd-pleasing dunk, which ignited the Bulls to a 7-0 run, and Buffalo never looked back.
"I give credit to our guys for hanging in there and fighting through until the end of the game defensively until we could cool them off," said Witherspoon.
The Zips hung around for a while, due to the three-point shooting by Tarver and John Hollingsworth, who scored 13. They never made it any closer than five points however, mostly because of their lack of a strong interior presence to go up against the Buffalo twin towers in Bortz and Idbihi.
"Mark and Yassin (Idbihi) are improving every day, and we want to take advantage of their skills," said Witherspoon. "They're really starting to put it together."
The Bulls hope to continue their latest string of wins at 2 p.m. on Sunday when they hit the road again for a showdown with Ball State (8-8, 5-3 MAC).
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
