7-5, 0-1MAC
Bowling Green
11-2, 1-0MAC
Bulls Drop Conference Opener at Bowling Green
1/4/2014 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
BOWLING GREEN, OH - The Buffalo women's basketball team roared into the Mid-American Conference season Saturday afternoon at Bowling Green, taking a 7-0 lead before two minutes had even come off the clock. Injury and foul troubles would ground the team prior to takeoff, and the Falcons (11-2, 1-0) would come back to win 62-50. Margeaux Gupilan matched a season high of 15 points for UB (7-5, 0-1), and freshman Joanna Smith had a career-high 10 points in the loss.
Backed by Mackenzie Loesing, the team built the 7-0 run to open the game into a 12-4 advantage at the 16:14 mark. Coming out of the game's first media timeout, Bowling Green would hit a three, and on the Bulls ensuing possession Loesing would grab an offensive rebound and tried to tip it in. She would not find safe footing on the way down, crashing to the ground while the Falcons took the missed put-back and hit another three with a 5-on-4 advantage. That would be all for Loesing, who would score eight of the team's first 12 points but exit at the 15:02 mark in the first half.
Bowling Green would earn its way into the lead thanks to superior effort in the rebounding department, earning countless second chances and using offensive rebounds to create a pair of 8-0 runs and a 7-0 run all within the game's first 14 minutes to build a 27-17 lead. Buffalo would whittle it down to 31-25 at halftime, but the Falcons would hold the lead at an arm's length for the rest of the game.
With its leading scorer out, UB leaned on a trio of players to try and pick up the slack. Jenna Rickan, making her third straight start of the season, matched her previous season high with seven points and set a new career high with six rebounds. Karin Moss hit on a pair of threes to give her six points for the game, and Smith found a rhythm in the second half and was relentlessly driving on the defense, scoring seven points in just over a five minute stretch of the second half.
While the offense struggled to its lowest shooting percentage of the season (32.8), the defense was still there, forcing 17 turnovers and holding the Falcons to just 33.9 percent from the field. It was the seventh game of the year that the defense limited the opponent to under 36 percent from the field. It's one achilles heel would be rebounding, as the Falcons claimed the widest rebounding advantage of any opponent faced this season, at 51-35.
The team will remain out on the road, traveling now to Western Michigan to face the Broncos. the Tuesday evening matchup in Kalamazoo will tip at 7 pm.
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