COLLEGE BASKETBALL
UB has some fun playing good defense
Bulls put on second-half rally to beat Temple
Most basketball players don’t get very excited about playing defense.
They give it proper reverence and understand its importance in the greater scheme of winning games. But rarely do they enjoy it.
Unless they are on the University at Buffalo men’s basketball team.
They think defense is fun. It was one key stretch of defense that kick-started the Bulls (3-2) in the second half as they earned an 83-73 win over Temple in front of 2,035 at Alumni Arena on Saturday.
“They started to struggle on the offensive end and we were having fun playing defense,” Buffalo forward Max Boudreau said. “That scares a lot of people.”
It put a scare in Temple (3-2) for sure as the Owls had difficulty dealing with the intensity, settling for long shots that fell short and throwing in a few careless turnovers.
Temple, the defending Atlantic 10 champion, led by as many as 14 points in the first half before the Bulls made a late run to trail only by six, 39-33, at halftime.
The Owls pushed the lead back up to 12 in the second half, but the Bulls used a 12-0 run, fueled by nine points by Rodney Pierce to tie the game, 56-56, with 10:27 left to play.
After a turnover by Temple, the Bulls set up their offense and Andy Robinson smoothly drove the wing for a dunk that gave Buffalo its first lead of the game, 58-56, with 9:45 remaining.
A layup by Calvin Betts with 4:41 to play made the score 64-62 and gave Buffalo the lead for good.
“We were good enough to get a lead in the first half, good enough to bump it back up in the second half but we weren’t good enough, tough enough and strong enough to hold that lead,” Temple coach Fran Dunphy said. “That’s the biggest thing to pay attention to.”
The key in that 12-0 stretch for the Bulls was a quality defensive effort — one that was lacking at the start of the game.
“We just picked up our intensity, got good stops and went from there,” said Betts, who led the Bulls with 18 points. “Our defense led to our offense, that’s that biggest thing. . . . The way we play defense you have to have fun with it. That’s how we practice it and we love to do it. It’s fun.”
Defensive intensity is something that Buffalo coach Reggie Witherspoon has emphasized this year and something his team has clearly bought into.
“To really play good defense, you have to have fun at it to be more aggressive and play with excitement and enthusiasm,” Witherspoon said. “[In Tuesday’s loss to Niagara] we got 10 stops in a row at one point and six stops in a row but we didn’t capitalize. Some of that was being impatient moving the ball and moving bodies. We started to piece the two together in the second half a little bit today.”
A key in the defensive intensity came from Robinson, who came off the bench and spent most of his defensive time guarding Dionte Christmas, an All-America candidate with NBA prospects. Christmas netted 16 points in the first half, including hitting four three-pointers. He finished with 25 points but did not score easily after Robinson entered the game.
“He’s a really good player and my mind-set off the bench was to slow him down,” said Robinson, who added 13 points. “Watching him from the bench, he was coming off screens too easy and I got a little physical and tried to make it tougher for him to catch the ball. I got right up under him with the help of my teammates hedging and that made a difference on him defensively.”
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