Simmons and Setty kept us in this game. KK and Dartis hit some big shots that helped us win it late.

I said it in the chat room and I'll say it again here.

I feel like we stole one. It's hard to steal one when you're at home and on Senior night, but we played awful and were behind the majority of the game from the opening tip. Buffalo was playing really well. We didn't play well at all.

But that leads me to my next point which is, we gutted out a win. We found a way to win on a night when we didn't play well and other team was. That's impressive. Not only that, we put up 103 points on a night when Campbell scored 6 points. Some tremendous offensive efforts from all those mentioned above. Great way to go out for Treg especially.

I'd like to add to something Monroe said about Doug Taylor. The kid is a big body with a physical presence and the more I see of him the more impressed I am. He battles for position and rebounds well (two things we sorely need inside) and he has some skills offensively. I don't know how healthy he is or his conditioning etc but I think he deserves more minutes. He's already passed Wadly on the depth chart but I could see a real case for giving him 12/15/18 minutes a night if he's able, especially to give us a more physical presence than Treg inside or on nights when TC is in foul trouble (or maybe even to give TC the confidence to actually PLAY defense instead of always being so passive for fear of foul trouble). Matchups obviously dictate that on a game by game basis but I felt like we played better and I was more comfortable with him in the game down low today than when Campbell was in there.

My last point is, we still employ the "OLE!" defense. Good lord we're bad. I don't know if it's lack of skill/athleticism of our guys on defense (slow feet makes us look out of position and unable to stay in front of guys), or if it's just a lack of will/preparation (defense and rebounding are about anticipation and want to)...or if that's just not the calling card of a Saul Phillips team (I hope it's not this). But, as fun as this team can be, they're only going to go as far as their defense and rebounding will take them in the post-season and I'm afraid that's not very far. Offense sells tickets. Defense wins championships. Hope we find a way to figure that out soon. Maybe more Taylor, Block and Laster.

A foul called on Buffalo going for a rebound, then a tech for arguing, then another tech on Bearden for something he must have said.

Reghi commented that Buffalo plays aggressive. They also play stupidly. They don't catch on that refs are calling a game tight.

Not sure about "stupidly". The do play aggressive. Aggressive D and aggressive O. They were holding and climbing all over Tone all game - held top scorer in the MAC most of this season under 8 pts. They crashed the boards both sides of the court. Seemed to me there were were 2-3 blue jerseys in the paint after after shot they put up (we rarely have anyone within 10 feet of the basket after a shot goes up unless it is a driver i.e. Simmons). They cut and slashed into the paint on O. They took a top team in the MAC to overtime on their court.

As my just prior post said - they were grabbing, holding, and climbing all over Tone all game. I think that was the bulk of their game plan - shut down Tone - and they did.

And they crash the boards both ends of the court. We don't.

From the Messenger article:

Buffalo was called for 36 personal fouls during the game, including the technicals. Four Bulls’ players fouled out, two more finished with four fouls, and Ohio shot a season-high 49 free throws. UB also took 32 free throws on 22 Ohio fouls.

“Some of that is on us,” Oats said. “We had some dumb ones. We grabbed guys, we held guys. We got to play smarter.”

Completely disagree. They made it their main focus that Campbell not touch the ball. There aren't many players, especially big guys, who can overcome that offensively. And we didn't try to force it to him very much which was good and the reason that Simmons, Setty and Kaminski combined for nearly 80 points. I hope more teams decide to sell out that much on Campbell. Not sure how you can complain about offensive production in this game. The object isn't to get Campbell points, it's to get team points and we just scored 103.

Just went back and rewatched the second half based on this comment and the complete whinefest going on on the Buffalo board and I have to say BS. If you think you deserved more free throws just because you drove more you guys don't know basketball. You drove a lot and subsequently scored a lot on the drives because we played so passively that you had a free path to the basket. On the other end you guys are just as aggressive on defense including holding, pushing and slapping. I rewatched looking for questionable calls and I couldn't find any other than a couple of out of bounds calls that you couldn't tell even on replay whether they were correct or not. Sorry but the foul differential was earned especially since you had so many in the last minute.

I agree with Van too. They were fronting Tony in the post and putting another defender on the block to prevent the lob over top. It was effective, and a lot of the fouls called on their bigs were when Tony had position and they were fighting like mad to get around to front him. As Van pointed out, Tony didn't get his points but plenty of others did.

They will be tough. That being said I hate their style of basketball. They are very athletic and so much of their game is just stuffing it down the opponents throat in one-on-one play. Just not what I like to watch.

Highlights:

It's terrible. Guys are ultra athletic and can score going to the hoop and pretty good defensively, but not much else. They reminded me or a Mick Cronin UC team, actually.

It was buffalo's play away from the ball that was the deciding factor in the foul counts. Your guys went into the paint a lot, yes, and for the most part did so uncontested. They could have called a foul on us for poor defense but we sure weren't trying to stop you. You held, you pulled, you hooked. you did it to the extreme all game long.