Move over Drew Carey, the Bulls are coming to town again.
It's been four years since the men's basketball team failed to advance to the second round of the Mid-American Conference tournament and coincidentally, it's been four years since the Bulls were seeded lower than eight.
This year, the Bulls head to Cleveland as the 10th seed, preparing to face off against seventh seeded Central Michigan at 5 p.m. on Wednesday.
The last time the two teams met, Central Michigan pulled out a 59-56 victory in Alumni Arena, thanks in part to two untimely turnovers in the last 63 seconds by sophomore guard Andy Robinson. The Bulls finished with 19 turnovers for the game.
Senior forward Yassin Idbihi, coming off an 18-point and10-rebound performance on Senior Night against Ohio, knows that Buffalo needs to limit its turnovers.
"I think we had 20 again (Sunday)," Idbihi said. "That's something we have to work on."
As the point guard, freshman guard Byron Mulkey is largely responsible for making sure the offense runs smoothly. Mulkey recorded 14 assists Sunday night against Ohio and knows that he and the rest of the Bulls will have to do much of the same in order to be successful against the Chippewas.
"Just take care of the ball and make the strong pass," Mulkey said. "Not try to do too much - Make sure the ball gets to the open person and not try to make the perfect pass, make the right pass."
Despite the fact that it is his first tournament, Mulkey is not worried about nerves entering the equation.
For Robinson, the advantage of having played in two tournament games last year has definitely helped him in his preparation.
"I think I'm a lot more ready than what I was last year," Robinson said. "Plus we got a couple seniors, it would mean a lot to them and it would mean a lot to me to make the MAC Tournament and win it, so this is a big game."
This is the first time in the history of the tournament that all the games will be played in Cleveland. While the top four seeds again receive first round byes, the first round games usually played on campus sites have been permanently moved to Quicken Loans Arena.
As a lower seed, head coach Reggie Witherspoon definitely sees an advantage for the Bulls.
"The timing of it is really great for us," Witherspoon said. "Normally we would have had to travel, being the 10th seed. Obviously it wouldn't have been as good if we were the seventh seed because we wouldn't have been looking at it like that because we'd want that game in our building. So from that standpoint it does change it."
However, Witherspoon knows that regardless of where the game is played, Central Michigan will come ready to play and the Bulls know what to expect.
"Aggressive play, hard nosed play," Witherspoon said. "I think Central Michigan is going to be ultra aggressive in terms of physical play."
For some of the younger players on the team, an aggressive first game could prove to be a challenge, but Witherspoon said that in order to combat the aggressive play the younger Bulls will have to remain aggressive themselves.
"The young guys have all had a full season of play" Witherspoon said. "The tournament comes down to once you get in it, it's open and you start to roll some things together then suddenly people don't talk about how young you are anymore."
Unfortunately for the Bulls, this year the Mighty Maniacs will be fewer in number as the school is no longer sending buses to the games.
"Well obviously I think our fans really helped us last night," Witherspoon said, "This is a team, as I said before the season started that we really need the support of our community and of our students to help our young guys in terms of the momentum. We play a lot more aggressive when we have more people watching so there's nothing we can really do about it, but if we could we'd have the Mighty Maniacs out in full force because it's open. It's an open tournament. We're not far away. The losses that we've had, we're just not that far away."
