Poor second half dooms Bulls

By Budd Bailey

Journalism school teaches reporters to emphasize the positive whenever possible. So let’s try the upbeat approach to the University at Buffalo’s men’s basketball game with Miami (Ohio) on Tuesday night.

If you had to see the headline “Miami dumps Buffalo,” wouldn’t you rather it be on Tuesday night than Sunday night?

Thought so.

Of course, it was a different sport, a different Miami team (the Redhawks of Ohio instead of the Dolphins of Florida), and a different game on Tuesday. This time it was the Buffalo team that let the game slip away in the second half, leading to a dismaying 86-65 defeat.

“We didn’t come out with the fight we needed to have in the second half,” UB coach George Halcovage said. “That’s a credit to them. … They brought great energy, and they jumped us. I don’t think we gave them any resistance. We’ve got to learn how to do that.”

For 20 minutes, it looked as if the Bulls might have a shot at their third win of the season.

They shot 52 percent from the field, forced the RedHawks into a 1-for-6 performance from three-point land, and even outrebounded Miami by a margin of 14-13. It seemed as if it was anyone’s game, even if the RedHawks had the lead almost all of the time.

“I thought our togetherness was great (in the opening 20 minutes), but we just didn’t stay together in the second half,” Halcovage said.

That was obvious almost from the first possession. With the score 40-39 for Miami after 40 seconds of the second half, the RedHawks went on a roll. In the next five minutes, UB was outscored by a 17-4 margin.

“I thought they were really patient on offense,” Buffalo’s Shawn Fulcher said. “But we have to be more disciplined. They kind of picked us apart with the right reads and the right shots. We have to stay together and defend.”

It didn’t get much better from there, as Miami extended the run to 38-17 with less than seven minutes to go. That was more than enough to send some of the patrons scurrying to go outside and battle the wind on the way home.

The numbers told the story. Miami shot 22 for 28 from the field in the second half, a ridiculous 78.6 percent. Its three-point percentage rose to 66.7 percent (4 for 6). Thirty of its 48 points in the second half came in the paint.

“We can’t let what’s going on with the game affect us with our energy,” Ryan Sabol said. “We have to be consistent. We have to be about the team all the time.”

One of the problems for UB was that Anderson Mirambeaux was simply a bad matchup for anyone in a Buffalo uniform. He checks in at 6-foot-8 and at least 300 pounds; needless to say he’s tough to dislodge around the basket. Mirambeaux missed the first six weeks of the season, but he contributed 21 points in less than 17 minutes on Tuesday.

“He’s a big-time matchup against anybody,” Halcovage said. “He does a great job physically getting the ball in spots, being patient. He’s a smart player. We knew that, we knew he could get points tonight. We wanted to limit the ability of other guys to hurt us. In the first half, we did a good job of that. … But we did not the physical plays inside the lane that you need to against a team like that, and they made us pay.”

For Buffalo, one of the problems was that Miami did a good job of shutting down the Bulls’ top two scorers Sy Chatman and Isaiah Adams. Chatman (18.8 points per game going in) was held to six points on only five shots, while Adams (13.2) was 2 for 7 from the field. Fulcher (20 points) and Sabol (14) did their best to fill the gap.

The numbers tell a tough story for UB at this point. The Bulls are 2-13, 1-2 in the Mid-American Conference. According to the NCAA Net rankings, UB was No. 341 out of 362 in the country entering the game. The other statistical ranking methods aren’t much better.

Buffalo is a team made up of players and coaches that certainly have had some basketball success in the past. They wouldn’t be here if they didn’t. This sort of stretch is unfamiliar territory for most, and therefore it’s easy to get discouraged.

“I think it’s human nature than when you’re in a rut, you’ve got to keep everyone’s energy high,” Halcovage said. “You’ve got to keep working at it. Sometimes everyone thinks the sky is falling, no matter what. It’s not the case. You have to keep learning, keep evaluating yourself, and stay together. That’s all we’re talking about. How can we learn from our mistakes? How can we come out and play better the next game? How can we go into the second half and play better? We’ve got to do that on a consistent basis. We have enough players here to get it done, but we’ve not been able to put together two great halves of basketball. Night in and night out in this league, you’ve got to be on your ‘A’ game.”

It doesn’t get any easier for the Bulls now. They play Friday in Akron and next Tuesday in Toledo – two of the three undefeated teams in the league entering Tuesday play.  

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