dj_paige

2 hours ago, bullsbball said:

Thanks for the update. I was unaware that Watson was ineligible and that Nwora is out for the year.

So the only hope in the short term is getting Salmons back?  I haven't been too impressed with her either. Not too much offense or defense out of her.

Still makes for a lot of MIA players.

Yes, I agree that Salmons has not put up big numbers, but I think some of the things she does will not show up in the box score. She boxes out. She takes up space on defense, opposing players decide not to shoot over her. The NIU center, in my opinion, wouldn't have had such an outstanding game if a player like Salmons was on the court. And she does score when the guards get her the ball, pick and roll or similar type of plays. But will she solve the team's problems? A little certainly, but other problems aren't going away.

Watson's transfer was not approved by the NCAA. So she has to sit out a year. 

Nwora has personal reasons for not playing this year.

Ellis hasn't earned playing time, her performances when she does get onto the court are weak.

3 hours ago, 1975 said:

I assumed they did. Quite a few women’s teams do (and some of the power programs have scout teams with men on them). If UB doesn’t, with several players MIA, who the heck do they practice against? How can they truly be prepared for opponents without a scout team to mimic their play?

They have 9 players on the roster currently available, 10 if Salmons comes back and Chellia Watson also practices with the team, plus at least 3 male practice players at the start of the season (and I really don't know if they are still available and un-injured). There's also no reason why assistant coach Wheeler couldn't join in on the practice. So they have enough for practice. 

8 hours ago, UB Horns Up said:

Becky Burke was a bad UB Bulls basketball hire and the damage is already done UB Bulls women’s basketball is irrelevant again in my opinion. UB Horns Up! Go Bulls! Let’s Go Buffalo 

Are you the same guy who said Lance Leipold was a terrible choice? Yes, I think so. And just so that you know, if there was a way to ignore you here at UBFAN so I would never see your posts, I would do so, just as I did at Bull Run. But I will ignore you in all other ways, from now on.

17 hours ago, 1975 said:

Once in a blue moon a team as short-handed as this one gets lucky using a member of the scout team as a walk-on. 

Do we have a scout team? The only "scout team" I know of are male practice players. Their "team manager" is already on the roster (Briyanna Baron). The usual "desperation" attempts to add to the roster have already been done, and those additions haven't helped.

So UB loses by 10 today to Northern Illinois, getting badly out-rebounded 51–25, and NIU's center A'jah davis picks up 21 rebounds, 18 points and shoots 8-for-10. What choice does UB head coach Becky Burke have here? Essentially, none. There is no one on the bench (until Salmons returns) that she can put on the floor that would provide better rebounding or better interior defense. And so, when the season began, and we had a team with lots of names that we didn't know, it still looked like a big front line by MAC standards, but then injury to Kiara Johnson, and the absence of Ronni Nwora, and the (hopefully temporary) absence of Kayla Salmons, and suddenly we've got no effective big players. Hattie Ogden, despite being 6-2, has been effective from the perimeter recently, but not on defense in the paint, and hasn't demonstrated any strong rebounding abilities. So the bad news is we're stuck with what we have right now, and that has major weaknesses. The optimism of early January is gone, and I think there's no real solution. I'm not trying to blame Becky Burke here, she was, and is, in a tough situation that wasn't of her making.

12 hours ago, Bluebird96 said:

I didn’t get to watch the game, but from the boxscore it looks like the shots were really  falling for the Bulls with 53.7% FG, 44% (8/18) from behind the arc, and 83% (15/18) on FTs.  Good to see every player in the scoring column and Winfield just missed another double-double. Crazy that they did it all with just 6 players (hopefully more than that dressed for the game?).  The only knock would be they only had 8 assists on 29 makes but whatever works, a win is a win. Maybe this will be the start of another good streak. Coach Burke definitely instills confidence that her team will keep improving and battling no matter who the opponent, home or away. Keep it up, Bulls! 🤘

Yes, very low assists, but with the style of play where guards dribble into the paint and take their shots, you won't get a lot of assists. So I don't even consider the 8 assists to be a negative here. It is a reflection of their normal style of play. But certainly a lot to feel good about, emphasis on "a lot". Ogden now with 9 made three-pointers in the last two games. Bench had 4 players, but two of them, Baron and Debortoli, were unlikely to see action unless the game was a blowout, and one other player Ellis hasn't been getting meaningful playing time in weeks; only Perkins came in off the bench.

For the UB Women's Basketball Team, there was much to be excited about as January began, but they limp into February on a 4 game losing streak.

As January began, Buffalo had a 4 game winning streak, and they would continue their success with 3 wins in the next 4 games. The only loss was to Kent State, by 1 point, on a last second shot by Kent. The Flashes at the time had an 8-3 record, and were expected to be one of the top teams in the MAC, so the fact that Buffalo nearly defeated Kent was a positive. But since the winning ways ended with a 19 point win against East Michigan on January 14, Buffalo has been in a tailspin.

In the four losses, there was a moral victory (more on that in a moment), but in three of the four games, Buffalo was outscored by double digits in the fourth quarter. In fact, in those three losses, the Bulls could not average even 10 points in the fourth quarter. With head coach Becky Burke allowing the three leading scorers, Jazmine Young, Re'shawna Stone and Zakiyah Winfield to play huge numbers of minutes, many times all forty minutes, people began to suspect that fatigue was playing havoc with Buffalo's fourth quarter efforts.

The moral victory in that stretch was a three point loss against Bowling Green, where the Bulls came back from a 9 point deficit in the third quarter to finally lose by 3, outscoring Bowling Green by 5 in the fourth quarter. The Falcons had only one loss in the MAC, and just two losses all year, and the Bulls had a chance to send the game into overtime with a final play with about 5 seconds left, but could not get a shot off as time expired.

In addition to the large number of minutes played by the guards Young, Stone and Winfield, they often don't get much help from the rest of the team. One game, Latrice Perkins had 12 points and played really well, but that was a one time scoring outburst from Perkins. In their most recent game against Akron, freshman Hattie Ogden knocked down 5 three pointers, not only her career high but the high for the entire team all season. Ogden's 15 points led the team, and was only the second time all year that someone other than Young, Stone and Winfield had put in 15 points (the only other time was when Kiara Johnson had 17, but her season ended due to injury, so that's not going to be repeated). But in the Akron game, the three guards had their worst collective performance since MAC play began.

So the Bulls need to reverse the trend. There's still a need for the three guards to play well, and for someone else to step up. Right now, with a 3–5 MAC record, the Bulls are in a three-way tie for seventh place, with the MAC's top eight teams advancing to the conference tournament. In other words, no room for error.

45 minutes ago, DocCas86 said:

I get that the two views come from different perspectives / sources.   I was commenting that the bettors are giving the Bulls less credit than the bartorviks and kenpoms and that Ub has to go out there and prove them (the betting population) wrong.

Or it could be that more Akron fans are betting than UB fans. It's not necessarily a reflection of team strength.

4 hours ago, DocCas86 said:

Thanks for the summary. It is interesting that predictors would have UB be a slight favorite, but the actual spread has the Bulls as slight underdogs.

Spread is not based on relative team strengths, it varies up and down on betting patterns to try to provide the most profit to the bookies. I believe the ESPN approach is based more on the team's performance.

When the usual strength of the team is a weakness, the team looks pretty bad.

30 minutes ago, UBinMD said:

Any idea what is up with Nwora? I just heard personal issues.

That's all I know.

1 hour ago, bullsbball said:

Why wasn't Perkins dressed?

I'm told she was injured. I don't know what the injury was or how serious it is.

1 hour ago, 1975 said:

I’m a fan but confess I’m not a “basketball guy”. Please explain the coaching philosophy here. What is the point of three 5th year players getting the bulk of the minutes while using a (very) short bench? Even if you win enough games to qualify for the post season wouldn’t you go into a grueling week with exhausted starters and a bench with likely inadequate game experience? Additionally, how does this approach develop younger players for the future? 

What needs to be explained? You play your best players, in an attempt to win the game. Are there other competing goals? Sure. Could she do things differently? Sure. And that's why Becky Burke gets the big bucks, to use her judgment on these competing goals. She doesn't have to do it my way, she doesn't have to do it your way, she doesn't have to do it Jim Whitesell's way, she is getting paid to make her own judgments on how to proceed.

I like the positivity here

Impressive performance despite the loss. I hope that ends the "fatigued in the 4th" narrative.

4 hours ago, John said:

With our non existent bench not sure if we will have enough energy in the 4th quarter which has been the case in the last few games. Go Bulls!!!

I wish it were that simple. Dyaisha Fair averaged over 37 minutes per game last year, and Summer Hemphill averaged nearly 36 minutes per game, and Georgia Woolley (once she became a starter) averaged 36 minutes a game, and I don't recall fatigue being a problem. There's really no way of knowing if the problem in the last two games was fatigue or something else.

Against Ball State, the Cardinals used a different center for most of the second half, compared to the first half, and perhaps she was more effective than the starting center at clogging up the paint, and so this had nothing to do with fatigue.

1 hour ago, John said:

I do agree. The bottom line is when the Ogden’s and Ellis’s come off the bench the way to get more playing time is hit some shots and neither has been close at all. They seem to be rushed and just throw shots up.

So, I would say something different. I think the coaches have encouraged Ogden and Ellis to take three pointers when they are open, and told them not to pass up the opportunity. The coaches know that they are good three point shooters (in theory). So in general, I don't mind the shots they have taken. Maybe a few times, they took the shot when they weren't open, hard to remember, those would not be good shots.

I think Ogden and Ellis haven't shown that they can be productive in actual games. So yeah, BB doesn't have faith in them at this time and (if it matters at all) I don't either.

On paper, Bowling Green stacks up as a very strong opponent, with two losses all season, and only one MAC loss. In addition, BG returns most of last year's team.

But, when Buffalo gets strong play from their three starting guards, Winfield, Stone and Young, they have showed they can carry the team against anyone. On the other hand, they ALL need to play well, if one or more of them have sub-par games, we will struggle against anyone. It would be great if someone else would start consistently playing well. I thought that might be Perkins, who had a good game against Ball State, but then not productive at all at WMU. It would be great if the two freshman, Ogden and Ellis, start making some shots, as they are purported to be the best three point shooters on the team, but so far no sign of that in actual games.

It does look like the large number of minutes played by most regulars seems to have a negative impact in the last two games ... but I don't know what choice HCBB has at this time. I note that playing huge number of minutes didn't really seem to bother Dyaisha Fair or Georgia Woolley last year.

Playing such a short (in height) lineup also has the negative effect that opposing teams interior players have an easy time in the paint, and Buffalo gets out-rebounded badly. Makes me continue to wonder why Kayla Salmons doesn't get more playing time — is there an injury we don't know about, or is she somehow in the coach's dog-house? Salmons didn't make an appearance in this game. Her replacement in the lineup, Latrice Perkins, had her best game of the season against Ball State, but against WMU Perkins was unproductive and had just 2 points and 3 rebounds in 31 minutes before fouling out

It looks like the season depends on how well Winfield, Stone and Young play, as it doesn't look like we will be getting a lot of contribution from anyone else.

2 hours ago, ChubbyHubby said:

Outlier?  Embarrassment is a better word, when it came to his antics.  I loved that we were winning, though.

Okay, I agree with both words, outlier and embarrassment.

I think we could have won without his antics, as Oats showed.

12 hours ago, John said:

I don’t have video of the play so I will have to take your call on it. There were many calls in the quarter that were questionable but again the bottom line is we did not have many good possessions and Ball State got hot to close the game. Amazing though after Ball State went on their run Sallee shut his mouth to the officials and after the game was out of reach the officials made several calls against Ball State. 

Yes, had the bad calls in the fourth quarter been spread out throughout the game, much less would be made of it. Certainly the intentional foul was surrounded by several bad calls, all against Buffalo, I agree with that.

As far as Sallee goes, once your up by 20 late in the fourth quarter, I think all coaches pretty much shut up at that point in time. Not really anything unusual there. And as far as equating Hurley and Sallee, I can't really agree ... I don't know what Sallee said to the officials, and I don't know what Hurley said to the officials, but sitting in the stands, I felt that Hurley's gestures, body language and facial expressions were often nasty and insulting towards the officials, whereas I don't see that from most coaches (including Sallee, including FLJ, including BB, including Oats, including Reggie, including Whitesell, including Linda Hill-McDonald). Hurley was an outlier.

The intentional foul on Perkins is a textbook example of what an intentional foul is. Perkins wasn't playing defense and she wasn't playing the ball. She reached out with her right arm and grabbed a BSU player who was ahead of her, and who was running full speed towards the basket. This grab caused the BSU player to slow down and lose her balance. Good call by the refs. If you want to see it, it is at 6:37 and 6:36 left in the 4Q.

The fees charged to students went into a pool of money, from which all athletics were funded. In those days, the students watched the expenditures carefully, and I believe there was a concern that since football was the largest expenditure, the money might be better used elsewhere. Anti-war sentiment was also a part of the discussion to stop funding football.

I remember one UB men's basketball game in which one of the referees had to travel from Minneapolis to Buffalo to work the game. The ref charged the university for his travel expenditures, which he was allowed to do, including airfare from Minneapolis to Buffalo. This was much more than most ref's travel expenses, as most refs came from within driving distance. The Student Association was angered by these charges, and wanted to prevent referees from traveling from so far away to work UB games. I don't know what happened.

Ketter announced the dropping of football in 1971, according to Wikipedia (which could be wrong). I doubt he had much say in the actual decision, even though he made the announcement. Meyerson was only UB president until 1969 (again according to Wikipedia).

Trivia I didn't know: Ketter designed the Buffalo and Erie County Library in downtown Buffalo.