OMAHA, Neb. – For 20 minutes on Tuesday night, the University at Buffalo men’s basketball team was primed to give the 10th ranked team in the country a scare, but the undefeated Creighton Blue Jays outscored the Bulls 52-33 in the second half, defeating Buffalo, 93-72.
Creighton got out to an early 15-6 lead in the contest, but the Bulls fought back as a three pointer by Blake Hamilton and three free throws from Willie Conner pulled Buffalo within a single possession, 15-12. The Blue Jays went back ahead 28-22 with 6:33 left when the Bulls rattled off five quick points to pull within one. UB went on to take its only lead of the night with 3:03 left on a floater in the lane by Hamilton, forcing Creighton in to a timeout with Buffalo leading, 34-33. Creighton regain the lead out of the timeout and a layup at the buzzer put the Bulls into the break down just two, 41-39.
Creighton, who ranks as one of the highest scoring offenses in the nation, opened the second half on a 9-3 run to go up 50-42. The Bulls were able to pull back within three on a layup from Raheem Johnson with 14L15 left when Creighton went on a game-changing 13-0 run over three minutes to take a 67-51 advantage. UB was able to pull it back to within 12 on a number of occasions, but a 13-4 run to end the game gave Creighton its largest lead of the night at 93-70 before a late UB layup ended the contest.
“I thought we played hard in the first 20 minutes, but turnovers killed us especially in the first half and I thought if we didn’t turn it over we could have built ourselves a little lead at the half,” said head coach Nate Oats. “We did a good job of cutting our turnovers down in the second half, but I thought our effort suffered a little bit and part of that is we aren’t that deep right now and our perimeter defense got a little tired and we gave up too many blow byes and they started to score in transition.”
Conner and Hamilton led the Bulls with 21 points each, the first time this season that UB has had multiple 20-points scorers in the same game. Conner was 6-of-8 from the free throw line as he was fouled three times tonight while shooting three pointers, knocking one of those threes down. Hamilton had a 20-point game for the third time in four games on the road trip.
Johnson finished with a new career high 14 points as he was 7-of-9 from the floor, while adding seven rebounds in 24 minutes. Freshman Davonta Jordan finished the night with a new career high 10 assists, while adding three points and five rebounds.
Sophomore Ikenna Smart added four points and seven rebounds and Dontay Caruthers had five points. Senior David Kadiri added four points off the bench. UB outrebounded Creighton 22-13 in the first half, but was outrebounded for the night, 42-40.
Creighton (7-0) was led by 22 points from Marcus Foster and 21 points from freshman Justin Patton.
The Bulls played in front of 16,434 tonight, its largest regular season crowd since the 2014-15 season when it played at Wisconsin.
UB will continue its road trip on Saturday when the Bulls travel south to St. Bonaventure for a Big 4 tilt with the Bonnies. Tipoff is set for 4:00 pm.
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