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Turner Battle

Battle's buzzer-beating bucket was only his fifth point on the night as the senior point guard was hampered by foul trouble and only played 18 minutes. In his place played Calvin Cage (Capitol Heights, MD/Bladensburg) who scored a season-high 18 points, including four three-pointers, and dished out four assists. Mark Bortz (Commerce Township, MI/Walled Lake Central) added 15 points and seven rebounds. Yassin Idbihi (Tangier, Morocco/Schloss Hagerhof) and Mario Jordan (Cleveland, OH/Benedictine) also reached double-figures with 12 and 10 points, respectively. Jordan tied a career high and led the Bulls with nine rebounds.

Buffalo (7-2) built a seven-point lead midway through the first half, but it took a Roderick Middleton (University Park, IL/Marion Catholic) buzzer-beater at the end of the first half to give the Bulls a 37-36 lead at the break.

The Bulls tried to pull away from the Nittany Lions on several occasions in the second half, but Penn State (5-5) refused to go quietly. A three-pointer by Battle with 2:31 left in the game gave the Bulls a 66-58 lead - their largest of the game. However, the Nittany Lions rattled-off four straight points to cut the lead to 66-62 with 51 seconds remaining. The lead remained four points until a lay-up by Geary Claxton cut the UB lead to 70-68 with 16 seconds remaining. Battle was fouled on the ensuing possession and missed the front end of a one-and-one free throw opportunity. Claxton gathered the rebound and got it ahead to Marlon Smith who took it the rest of the way for a lay-up to tie the contest at 70 with six seconds remaining. Following a Buffalo time out, Battle got the ball at mid court and dribble it to the free throw line where he hit a leaning jump shot for the game winner.

Calvin Cage

A key component to the Buffalo's victory was the play of its bench. The UB bench scored 35 points compared to only six from Penn State's pine. The Bulls' pressure defense also recorded eight steals and forced 19 turnovers.

"Turner's shot was big at the end, but what was really big was the play of the people that came off the bench," Witherspoon said. "We didn't play our best game and we are very fortunate to come away with a win. But it allowed us a chance to learn of how important the little things are down the stretch of a basketball game and hopefully that will help us in the future."

Buffalo's victory was its first-ever over a team from the Big Ten Conference. The Bulls did beat Penn State one other time, but that was during the 1968-69 season, prior to when it joined the Big Ten. Buffalo will not play again until Jan. 2 when it plays at Bowling Green as Mid-American Conference play gets underway.