Miami defeated Buffalo on Jan 4 in Oxford 93-79. A long time ago. If you look at that score and the overall record Miami 21-8(12-4) and Buffalo 9-20 ( 4-12) it looks easy. However, there is another way of looking at it. This is our last dreaded midweek MAC road trip. One of the parents told me Saturday that he thought we were taking a charter flight, which would certainly be better than a couple of 8 or 9 hour bus trips. Anyway, we have now lost our last 3 road games and Buffalo just beat Toledo 87-74 at home on Saturday. Here is an interesting stat. UB is 6-8 at home, Miami is 5-7 on the road, so basically the same.
George Halcavage III is in his first year at Buffalo, he was an assistant at Villanova. He might have the youngest roster in D1, one SR, one Jr, everybody else is a freshman or sophomore. They also have 8 international players, although 4 are from nearby Canada. They like to play up tempo and shoot threes, so the same sort of game we play. Should be fun to watch.
Soph guard, 6-2 Ryan Sabol, averages 14.7ppg and is already 8th in Buffalo history in 3’s with 139. Sr guard 6-3 Tyson Dunn has had several big games this season and averages 12.6. He is 8th all time in assists for the Bulls. 6-5 soph Bryson Wilson had a perfect shooting night vs Toledo, scoring 20 points without a single missed shot. They also have 6-8 fr from Great Britain Ben Michaels who can shoot 3’s.
Our 3 losses in a row on the road have all featured very poor shooting performance from a team which is ranked highly in many shooting stats nationally. Buffalo is already eliminated from the conference tourney and play at Akron in their final game, so this is their last realistic chance to accomplish something big. We really need to win these last 2 games to go fully confident into the tournament. Please make plans to be in Cleveland to support our teams.
Women’s tournament is always open seating except for the first 2 or 3 rows. We always sit in the area behind the Miami bench for those games. For the men’s section there are assigned seats and our are in the lower arena just behind and above the pep bands. We usually never sit in those seats but in the club section just above the assigned Miami section. If you call our ticket office you should be able to get seats in the Miami section. You can also probably get them before the game at the Arena as there is normally a Miami desk and Alex will be there selling tickets. Or you can sneak in or sit up in the club level ( spectacular view). I would like to meet you.
A little hot streak led by Skaljac and we are up 9 at the 4 and under TO which comes with 1:13 left. Only 3 fouls on each team, so darn few clock stops.
