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Mark Bortz

BUFFALO, NY ­ Mark Bortz (Commerce Township, MI/Walled Lake Central) scored 21 points and grabbed a career-high 15 rebounds and MAC All-Freshman candidate Yassin Idbihi (Tangier, Morocco/Schloss Hagerhof) tallied a career-high 19 points to lead Buffalo to a 77-58 victory over Marshall at Alumni Arena on Saturday afternoon. UB has now won four of its last five games.

Buffalo (9-10, 5-6) led the game wire-to-wire. A layup by Mario Jordan (Cleveland, OH/Benedictine) sparked a 10-0 run that gave the Bulls a 19-6 lead with 12:41 left in the first half. Within the run, a triple by Turner Battle (Kernersville, NC/East Forsyth) gave the Bulls an eleven-point lead. Buffalo held a double-digit lead for the rest of the game. A layup by Bortz extended the Bulls' advantage to 39-17 with 3:01 left in the first half. The Thundering Herd closed the first stanza on an 8-2 run to cut the UB lead to 42-25 at the half.

Marshall (7-12, 4-7) never threatened in the second half. Leading 63-44 with 7:58 left on the clock, the Bulls went on a 14-4 run to extend their lead to 29 points. Marshall would score the final 10 points of the game to cut the UB lead to 19 points when the clock hit zero.

Bortz added four blocked shots to cap his career day. Battle scored 12 points along with a game-high six assists. Daniel Gilbert (Detroit, MI/Cass Technical) had a great all-around outing as he tallied eight points, nine rebounds, three assists and three steals. His steal and breakaway slam, early in the second half, brought the 3,278 in attendance to their feet.

UB outrebounded the Herd, 47-41, and collected 21 offensive boards. The Bulls converted their offensive caroms into 22 second chance points. Buffalo outmuscled Marshall around the hoop, outscoring the Herd, 44-27, in the paint.

Marshall shot 33.9 percent from the floor and an ice cold 1-for-15 from beyond the arc. The Herd was led by David Anderson who scored 10 points. Eric Smith added seven points and seven rebounds for Marshall.

"I think it's important that once you get into the thick of conference play, there is going to be some adversity and you're going to have to respond to it," head coach Reggie Witherspoon said referring to the Bulls' loss to Eastern Michigan on Wednesday night. "This afternoon we wanted to make sure that we issued that response early on by establishing ourselves defensively and I think that we definitely did that."