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Bulls Fall Just Short at Kent State, 68-64

Byron Mulkey

Buffalo (11-16, 3-10 MAC) was led by the Byron Mulkey (Wheatfield, NY/Niagara-Wheatfield) who scored a career-high 21 points to lead all scorers. The freshman walk-on continued to open eyes in only his seventh career game, as he drained four three-pointers and added four rebounds and four assists.

Kent State (18-9, 10-3 MAC) led nearly the entire contest, but never by more than nine points. The Golden Flashes led, 32-31, at the half.

Following a pair of free throws by Yassin Idbihi (Tangier, Morocco/Schloss Hagerhof) that made the score 39-37 in favor of Kent State, the Golden Flashes rattled off seven straight points to take a 46-37 lead, their largest of the night, with 12:49 remaining.

After a Julian Sullinger three-ball with the shot expiring, put Kent State up, 54-47, Mulkey hit a three of his own and came up with a steal and a lay-up to quickly cut the lead to two. However, the Golden Flashes went on another scoring run, this time a 7-1 effort, to re-establish an eight-point lead with 5:44 left.

The Bulls scored six straight points, capped by an Idbihi jumper to whittle the lead to two with 4:10 remaining. Kent State had an answer again as Smith drained a three-pointer with 2:27 left to put the Golden Flashes back up by six.

With Kent State leading by five with 36 seconds remaining, Eric Moore (Dover, NJ/St. Benedict’s Prep) hit his fourth trey of the game to slice the lead to 66-64. Darwin Young (Buffalo, NY/Hutch Tech) came up with a steal on the Kent State’s next possession, but he missed the game-tying lay-up. The ball, however, remained with the Bulls with 20 seconds on the clock. A three-pointer by Moore, that would have given the Bulls the lead, rimmed out.

Idbihi notched his 11th double-double of the season with 13 points and 11 rebounds. Moore also reached double-figures with 12 points.

The Bulls got another nice outing from Andrew Atman (Pittsburgh, PA/Upper St. Clair) who scored seven points, including his first three-pointer of the year.

Kent State was led by Haminn Quaintance and Omni Smith who each scored 11 points.

“I thought both teams played with a very high intensity level,” head coach Reggie Witherspoon said. “We needed to get a few breaks, but we didn’t.”

Buffalo will remain on the road and play at Miami (OH) on Saturday afternoon. Tip-off is slated for 2:30 pm.