The Eastern Michigan University men’s basketball team grabbed a 78-65 win over a University of Buffalo team in a Mid-American Conference match-up Saturday at the Convocation Center.
The Eagles (7-17, 4-7 MAC) finished the game with four players scoring in double digits. Brandon Bowdry led with 20 points and also pulled down a team-high six rebounds. Darrell Lampley scored 15 and was 10-of-10 on free throws. Derek Thompson scored 13 and Jamell Harris had 11 with a game-high five blocks.
“Tremendous, it was a tremendous effort where we put everything together,” coach Charles Ramsey said. “We closed out a game. We had a lead and we played the last four minutes, and we didn’t look up.”
The Eagles defense did a good job on the Bulls’ leading scorers Byron Mulkey and Zach Filzen. Filzen had been averaging 21.2 points over his last six games but would only finish with 14, making 4-of-15 field goals. Mulkey had been averaging 14.8 points but would only get five. “Buffalo is tough,” Ramsey said. “They are very physical defensively. They grab, they hold, they hit you and so you have to be ball-tough. They made us somewhat stagnant and you got to give credit where credit is due, and that is one of their staples of their program.”
EMU held a slight advantage on the scoreboard through much of the second half before two free throws by Lampley gave the Eagles their first double-digit lead (63-53) with 5:20 left. The Bulls (15-8, 7-4 MAC) would try and make a game out of it when they cut the deficit to seven off a Mitchell Watt dunk with 1:50 remaining.
But it was all Eagles after that as they finished the game on an 11-5 run that was punctuated by a dunk from Harris with 19 seconds left.
“This is the top team in the league and we beat them by what today, 13?” Ramsey said. “We go to Bowling Green and we lose by five, we played well at Kent the other day and we were up 20 on Miami. I thought we were talented but you need to be more than talented and so we are getting better cohesively.”
Buffalo is fourth in the MAC East but holds the second-best overall record among MAC teams.The Eagles got off to quick start by going up 7-1 within the first three minutes. The Bulls would climb back in to the game when Watt threw down an alley-oop dunk over a few Eagle players bringing the score to 17-16 with 9:40 left in the first half.
The Bulls looked to have stolen the lead from the Eagles when Dave Barnett made good on a layup with 11 seconds left in the first half before Quintin Dailey was fouled on his way to the basket with less than a second on the clock. He would make both free throws and to give EMU the edge, 35-34.
The Eagles shot 51.1 percent on 24-of-47 field goals, 33.3 percent from behind the arc on 6-of-18 and 68.6 percent from the free throw line on 24-35.
Buffalo was led by Javon McCrea who scored 17. Mulkey had a game-high seven assists. EMU will continue MAC play against Central Michigan University 7 p.m.Wednesday in Mount Pleasant.
