UB's Oboh sends MAC a message

By Budd Bailey

Tim Oboh of the University at Buffalo’s men’s basketball team had something of a coming-out party on Saturday afternoon.

The 6-foot-11 center came into the game with Ball State averaging a mere 7.6 points per game. But on Saturday, he went off for a career-high 22 points in 21 minutes in an outstanding performance.

Oboh was a major reason why the Bulls had little problem in improving 13-2 on the season, 3-0 in the Mid-American Conference. They took an 85-72 win from the Cardinals (4-10, 0-2) on Kids Day at Alumni Arena.

The MAC has some good players on its rosters, but not too many of them are 6-11. If Oboh can continue to approach that level of play, it would make Buffalo a more dangerous team. The Bulls already have a fine scorer in Daniel Freitag, and an outstanding scoring threat in Ryan Sabol. Throw in the steady play of Noah Batchelor up front, and you have the makings of a team that could be ready to make some noise in conference play.

“Tim Oboe keeps getting better, the efficiency he had at both ends,” coach George Halcovage said. “Tim set the tone defensively in the first half, and he had 21 points and drew six fouls.

“It’s huge. We want every guy to improve. But when you have a guy of his size and his caliber … and he competes so well, it helps so much. … He will get better.”

Oboh added, “It all comes down to my teammates’ play.”

UB wasted no time in showing that its good play in the final months of 2025 would continue into the first game of 2026. The Bulls had a 13-2 lead after only five minutes of play, and they stretched it to 29-11 with about 6:40 left in the half. The Cardinals had trouble with Buffalo’s defensive intensity, getting called for two shot-clock violations and forcing up a few other shots near the buzzer.

“You’ve got to set a tone,” Halcovage said. “We didn’t set a tone at Northern Illinois in either half. We watched the films. We learned from it. I’ll say this – I took Tim out early against Northern Illinois and challenged him to be the guy that comes out of the guy to come out of the gate. He did that today, and when he does that, he makes a difference. Our guys were dialed in on the scouting report. They came out and defended and rebounded.”

That essentially was the game, as Ball State never was closer than 10 points from the lead for the rest of the game. UB had a 19-point lead with 3:40 left, and gave up some points when it didn’t really matter. This was a convincing win, something that hasn’t been seen very often in the past two-plus years in this building.

Sabol led the way in scoring for the Bulls with 22 points, including a 4-for-5 performance in three-point shooting. Angelo Brizzi added 15 points, and Noah Batchelor chipped in with 12. UB shot 57 percent from the field, and an eye-opening 94.4 percent from the line.

“We play together all the time,” Batchelor said. “There’s no selfishness. We pass it around. It’s just team basketball, and it’s definitely special to see that.”

As Canisius coach Jim Christian pointed out on Friday night, it’s difficult to tell how much meaning to put into the results of non-conference games. Buffalo obviously had done quite well in the early going, as the record showed. This latest win simply reinforced the good feelings that are around the team at the moment.

“We’ve showed some growth and we’re taking it one day at a time,” Halcovage said. “We’re out to be better on Monday. We’ve got to watch the film, evaluate ourself. That’s the only way to get better. We have real intelligent guys, but if you can’t get them to play hard, that intelligence doesn’t mean much. We challenge them to become a better defensive and rebounding team, and it showed the last three games in the MAC. We have improved our defense and physicality in rebounding. I’m really proud of them.”

The Bulls will have the week off from games until getting back to work on Saturday at Ohio University. They will host Kent State on January 13.

(Follow Budd on X.com via @WDX2BB)