21-11 guarantees nothing to a team that finished 4-6 in its last 10 games
Zips leave Bulls breathless in winning title
CLEVELAND—The last time the University at Buffalo advanced to the Mid-American Conference championship game the Bulls had the air taken out of them at the overtime buzzer. This time they never, ever even caught a breath.
From the UB perspective, Saturday night’s 65-53 loss to Akron at Quicken Loans Arena was armadillo ugly. The Zips took UB out of its offense almost from the get-go, clogged the passing lanes, forced the Bulls into long possessions that almost inevitably ended with an undesirable shot taken out of necessity.
This loss resembled those that came during UB’s late-season four-game losing streak, particularly the BracketBuster defeat at Vermont. It was in that game, too, that the Bulls turned to mothballed guard Byron Mulkey as a last resort instead of adjusting their approach. The results were the same. A sound defeat, this one far more damaging and dispiriting than the last. We’ll see if a National Invitation Tournament berth awaits, but 21-11 guarantees nothing to a team that, this run to the final included, finished 4-6 in its last 10 games.
Bulls coach Reggie Witherspoon said afterward that his team was guilty of trying to respond to Akron’s torrid shooting by rushing shots. Sorry. That had nothing to do with what transpired. There were six seconds left on the shot clock when Calvin Betts missed a three with Akron ahead, 9-7. Again, six seconds remained on the shot clock when John Boyer missed a three with Akron ahead, 15-8. The Bulls were taking what they could get, and it wasn’t much as the Zips smothered their motion and forced them into retreat by playing with a heightened physicality.
“We never got settled in,” Witherspoon said. “We’d have a little bit of a run and then we’d have a breakdown. They played like they’ve been here before and they did a great job.”
“They did a pretty good job of being physical,” senior point guard Greg Gamble said. “They took us out of our rhythm a little bit.”
The Bulls never reacted, never tried to figure out another way. Buffalo’s best offense of the night came late, when the five players on the floor made what seemed like a conscious decision to abandon their worthless motion scheme and instead take it to the basket solo, hoping for the best. That’s exactly what they should have been doing earlier, running isolation plays, taking Akron out of its comfort zone instead of permitting
the Zips to play defense by rote.
A lot of people thought the Bulls matched up more favorably with Akron than the other potential finalist, Bowling Green. Pro- Akron logic went that BG beat the Bulls twice during the regular season and had confounded them with a 2-3 zone. UB, meanwhile, had split its season series with Akron, which plays steady man-to-man.
Those who wished for Akron were overlooking a couple of important points. The Zips play better defense than they’re given credit for, which is how senior forward Nate Linhart ended up being the conference’s defensive player of the year. The Zips are also much, much deeper than Bowling Green, have many more scoring options. And Akron has, in Keith Dambrot, one of the league’s brightest coaching minds.
Dambrot conceded that UB’s offense, when flowing, might be the best system in the league. “The problem [for UB] is we’ve played it so many times,” Dambrot said. “We said we’re going to make sure we cover their guards. I think a lot of people do the opposite. They let their guards run wild. We said we’re going to cover their guards and make their big people beat us.”
That explains why the Bulls were banished to the perimeter, why they seemed utterly clueless how to attack what they were facing. It didn’t help that the Zips were making shots at a ridiculous clip, shooting 55.3 percent from the game, including 55.6 percent from three. At the same time, the Zips found strength in the knowledge that, defensively, they had UB’s number. A team’s bound to play more at ease at the offensive end when producing stops at the other end of the floor.
The Bulls spent the postgame news conference talking about how they didn’t give their offense a chance. Gamble said they learned, “Just be a little bit more patient and try to work the ball on offense to let our offense create our shots for us. I think they took us out of that a little.”
“Show more poise,” Calvin Betts said. “Don’t let other teams dictate how you play.”
Akron dictated how UB played, all right. It had nothing to do with patience. It had everything to do with a snuffed out game plan and a coach’s unwillingness to adjust.
For Bob DiCesare’s column on the UB women, see buffalonews.com bdicesare@buffnews.com
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