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Roderick Middleton

Buffalo (18-7, 10-6 MAC) hit its first five shots and jumped out to a 12-4 lead. Turner Battle (Kernersville, NC/East Forsyth) sparked the Bulls early scoring 10 of his game-high 21 points in the first stanza. A jumper by Mark Bortz (Commerce Township, MI/Walled Lake Central) gave the Bulls a 24-13 lead with 8:32 left in the first half. Marshall charged back to cut the lead to 26-23 with 2:44 left in the half. However, UB closed the half on a 5-0 scoring run to take a 31-23 lead at the break.

Marshall (5-19, 2-13 MAC) cut the lead to 42-37 with 12:11 remaining. Roderick Middleton (University Park, IL/Marian Catholic) quickly silenced the Thundering Herd threat by nailing back-to-back three pointers to extend the Buffalo lead to 11 points with 11:02 remaining. Middleton scored all 14 of his points, including three three-pointers, in the second half. The Bulls would extend their lead to 16 points before cruising to the 13-point victory.

Buffalo dominated the glass, outrebounding Marshall, 41-29, including 19 offensive boards. Bortz grabbed a game-high eight rebounds to go along with his 12 points. Daniel Gilbert (Detroit, MI/Cass Technical) and Parnell Smith (Indianapolis, IN/Pike) added 7 and 6 rebounds, respectively. Defensively, the Bulls had 12 steals and forced 16 Marshall turnovers.

"It was a soul-searching game for us because we were really tired after coming off our trip to Fresno," head coach Reggie Witherspoon said. "I thought our guys did a good job of containing the dribble penetration of Marshall's perimeter players and we did a pretty good job of going to the glass and working as hard as we could to get offensive rebounds."

In the game, Battle moved past Curtis Blackmore (1970-73) into seventh place on UB's all-time scoring list with 1,293 points.

Buffalo has the weekend off and will next play at Ohio next Wednesday night. Tipoff is slated for 7 pm.