Men’s basketball (13-16, 7-9 MAC) lost against Toledo (23-6, 14-2 MAC) 101-71 at Savage Arena Saturday, despite having the two leading scorers of the game. Junior guard Zid Powell and senior forward LaQuill Hardnett both had 20 points, but that wasn’t enough to overcome the six Rockets scoring in the double-digits.
UB, having won only two of its last five games, came up against a red-hot Toledo team that, entering the game, had the third-longest winning streak in Division-I basketball. While the game started off somewhat even, the current No. 1 team in the Mid-American Conference opened up their scoring powered by junior guard RayJ Dennis, who had eight assists in the first half. He accounted for half of the 16 assists on 21 made field goals for the Rockets in the first 20 minutes. Toledo led UB by 20 points at the half.
Things didn’t get better for the Bulls as turnovers continued to be a problem in the second 20 minutes. UB gave up the ball a total of 12 times over the course of the contest, which fueled many fast breaks for the Rockets. UB also struggled shooting the ball, only going 7-25 from 3-point range as well as 26-66 from the field.
Buffalo has two games left in the season before the MAC Tournament in Cleveland. They hope to stay in playoff contention over the next week and to gain a higher seed and improve their conference ranking. They will face Northern Illinois (12-17, 8-8 MAC) on Tuesday at the NIU Convocation Center. Tipoff is set for 8 p.m. The game can be watched on ESPN+.
The sports desk can be reached at sports@ubspectrum.com
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Evan Hilbert is an assistant sports editor at The Spectrum. He also is a three-season student-athlete with UB’s DI cross country, indoor track, and outdoor track team. He’s a fan of the Milwaukee Bucks, Newcastle United F.C., and the Buffalo Bills.