Five, four, three, two, one.
It was over.
The victory over Kent State was complete and the Sea of Blue engulfed the court of Alumni Arena in celebratory fashion Wednesday night.
The script called for a packed house, for everyone in attendance to contribute to a Sea of Blue, and ultimately for the Buffalo Bulls (13-11, 8-7 MAC) to beat the Mid-American Conference-leading Kent State Golden Flashes (20-4, 13-2 MAC).
The fans would not have it any other way.
A passionate crowd of 6,176 cheered on their UB Bulls as they shocked the Golden Flashes in dramatic style, 82-66.
It was one of the largest crowds ever in Alumni Arena, second only to those who came for 1999's North Carolina game.
"I'm speechless right now," said junior point guard Turner Battle in his reaction to the court-storming. "It was very exciting. I never experienced anything like that other than high school and this is my third year. I was very excited because all the fans came down; it was like a playoff atmosphere."
Danny Gilbert and Calvin Cage, not the typical leading scorers, led the balanced cast of Bulls.
Gilbert topped all scorers with a career-high 22 points, while Cage (18 points) came off the bench to ignite a UB team that beat Kent State at their own game. Buffalo was making all the right moves by capitalizing on fast breaks and KSU turnovers en route to defeating the KSU.
"I credit it all to my teammates, they did a good job looking for me," said Cage. "I missed a couple in the beginning and they just told me to keep my head up and keep shooting."
Battle also noted on Cage's shooting performance as if he knew Cage was ready to explode.
"Calvin played great for us," said Battle. "We have different guys step up for us every night and early in the game I told him not to kick his foot out of his jumper a little bit, just go straight up, and from that point forward he just caught fire. He's a deadly shooter."
Gilbert, best known for his thunderous dunks, showed that he is a complete player. He ran circles around the Kent State zone defense with reverse layups, pull up jumpers and by also going 4-6 from 3-point range. He was a scorching 8-11 overall from the field.
"Well, I knew that the match ups would be a little difficult because of our quickness," said Gilbert. "I came in to do my job tonight and everything fell into place. I took shots that were open."
With Gilbert and Cage getting it done on the offensive end of the floor, Battle made it happen for UB on both ends of the court. The junior point guard played all 40 minutes of the game and nearly had a triple double as he finished the game with 13 points, nine assists and a team high seven rebounds.
"We came into this game with a shortened rotation and knew he was going to have to play extended minutes," said head coach Reggie Witherspoon on Battle's complete game.
For Kent State, a team that was rolling on a ten-game winning streak, which included a blowout win over Creighton on nationally televised ESPN2, it was as if they were playing against a mirror image of themselves in UB.
"We just didn't play our game," said second year KSU head coach Jim Christian. "We didn't play like we normally play. We took some quick shots and took some shots we normally don't take. Our problems were defensively tonight."
That would be a first for Kent State this season, because defensively speaking the team had not given up 80 points once this season. Buffalo's 82 points is the tenth time this season that the Bulls have reached the 80 points mark. It was made even more impressive by the fact that the Bulls were without starting forward Mario Jordan who was suspended for two games for unspecified reasons.
Witherspoon noted that this team is now able to overcome obstacles such as that.
"I knew that our team was going to fight for everything," Witherspoon said referring to the absence of Jordan. "I knew we wouldn't just lie down and say 'Oh we're missing a guy.' Our guys are not good victims anymore. They pulled together pretty good. We're starting to get better at that."
With the game tied at 16, a Battle layup ignited a 16-4 run to put Buffalo up 32-20. After taking that 12-point lead, Buffalo would not look back, but the feeling that a Kent State run could still come was lurking.
The thought of waking a sleeping giant had to be going through the minds of Witherspoon and company.
"Of course when you play Kent State you have to be prepared for them to make a run, which we were prepared for," said Battle. "I was just having our teammates calm down and not let adrenaline take over our offense and let it take over our defense. I think we did that."
However, the Golden Flashes never made that run and Buffalo left them behind as the lead in the second half grew to as many as 19 points, 79-60, with a little over 2:30 left to play in the game.
What was probably more impressive than UB's astonishing 3-point shooting (14-25) was the stingy defense by the Bulls. UB forced KSU into committing 16 turnovers while the Golden Flashes only passed out nine assists.
"I thought we had individual guys trying to get us all back at one time and just played frustrated," said Christian.
Freshman Yassin Idbihi had an uncharacteristic game, not in the sense of his point total of 16, but how he achieved it. The 6-foot, 10-inch center was 4-4 from downtown forcing KSU star center John Edwards to come out of his domain in the paint and guard him.
"When you're playing against a team like Kent State that has a tremendous shot blocker like John Edwards you really have to be a threat to shoot it," said Witherspoon referring to Idbihi luring Edwards out of the paint.
"Even if you miss a few he has to be thinking he has to come out there. If he does that it takes him away from the basket. It was important that he shot it when he was open."
For the game Buffalo shot a sizzling 55.8 percent from the floor and 56 percent from 3-point range while holding KSU to 44.6 percent from the field and forcing the Golden Flashes to 30.8 percent from 3-point range.
Chants of "over-rated" echoed throughout Alumni Arena as the game clock hit the 2:30 mark and it was evident that UB's Mighty Maniacs were destined to storm the court.
"It's good to see our students be able to take part in the true essence of college basketball and to look up and see blue everywhere, the band going and the cheerleaders going," said Witherspoon. "Storming the court is dangerous, but they were only able to experience that from watching it on TV. I think that they enjoyed it more in person tonight, I'm happy for them."
Witherspoon believes that UB has achieved a new level.
"Now the students can walk around here and hold their heads high and understand that we're a functioning member of the MAC," said Witherspoon.
The win puts UB in fifth place in the MAC, and with Northern Illinois' defeat of the RedHawks Wednesday night, Buffalo is just two games behind the Miami of Ohio RedHawks, UB's next opponent.
If Buffalo can win out against Miami, Ohio and Akron, they could overtake Miami for third and receive a bye into the MAC Tournament in Cleveland, Ohio. The RedHawks still have games against Kent State and Marshall.
Buffalo now must hit the road for that showdown with the RedHawks. Tip off is set for 4 p.m. on Saturday in Millett Hall.
Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki
