Bulls Stumble at Home, Fall to Ball State 69-58

Saturday, February 15

Buffalo, NY

2:00 pm

13-10,4-8MAC

Ball State

17-7,9-3MAC

Ball St.

Buffalo

Bulls Stumble at Home, Fall to Ball State 69-58

2/15/2020 4:37:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score

BUFFALO, NY – The University at Buffalo women's basketball team fell to Ball State 69-58 at Alumni Arena on Saturday afternoon. With the loss the Bulls fall to 13-10 overall, 4-8 in league play.

Buffalo was led by Theresa Onwuka who came up just shy of a double-double with 10 points and nine rebounds and Marissa Hamilton who also scored 10 points. Dyaisha Fair and Hanna Hall chipped in nine points each.

The two teams would trade baskets to start the game before Fair drove and kicked to Hamilton who drained the three to put UB up 9-6 and they would lead 9-8 at the first media timeout. The back-and-forth affair would continue before Ball State ended the quarter on a mini 4-1 run to take a 13-12 lead at the end of the first.

Ball State opened the second quarter on a 6-0 run to take an early 19-14 lead but the Bulls responded with a 6-0 run of their own in just over a minute on three straight baskets by Elea Gaba, Onwuka and Fair to take a 20-19 lead at the 5:40 mark. Later, Hamilton threaded the needle to Keowa Walters on the block for two to put UB up 23-21 at the 3:26 mark but the Cardinals closed the quarter on an 11-2 run to take a 32-26 lead at the half.

Back-to-back UB offensive rebound putbacks cut the lead to 32-30 early in the third and later a corner three from Hall cut it to 35-33 at the 8:04 mark but the Cardinals rattled off an 11-2 run to take a 46-35 lead at the media timeout. After three minutes of no scoring, Fair threaded the needle to Gaba on the block for two and later Fair picked off the pass and took it coast-to-coast for the lay in to cut the Ball State lead to 46-42 but the Cardinals would maintain a 49-42 lead at the end of the three quarters of play.

Buffalo would cut the Ball State lead to eight on a drive and finish by Onwuka but the Cardinals would hit back-to-back three's early in the fourth quarter to take a 57-44 lead at the 7:02 mark and UB would get no closer than 11 the rest of the way as Ball State sealed the game from the free throw line in the final minutes.

The Bulls won the battle in the paint 36-28, held the narrow 45-42 edge on the glass and scored 19 second chance points off of 20 offensive rebounds but UB shot just 5-of-25 from behind the arc and 5-of-14 from the charity stripe while the Cardinals shot 43% from the floor and 50% (8-of-16) from deep.

Buffalo concludes the homestand with a game against the Akron Zips on Wednesday, February 19, at 7pm on Mental Health Awareness night at Alumni Arena.