Hustle plays from Calvin Betts and the rest of the Bulls helped Buffalo grab an impressive 71-65 road victory at UW-Green Bay on Tuesday night (H. Marc Larson/Press-Gazette).
Senior leadership does not come in a dearth for Buffalo. There are six Bulls that have been through the ups and downs of the last three seasons, so the trials of this season are nothing new.
Just don’t blame senior guard Rodney Pierce for taking it upon himself to making sure the unfulfilled goals of previous years are finally brought to fruition.
Pierce showed his best Calvin Cage impersonation Tuesday against a quality Green Bay team from the Horizon League. Against a 10-3 Phoenix team that beat Wisconsin earlier this month, Pierce took 36 percent of Buffalo’s shots and scored 41 percent of the team’s 71 points.
And Buffalo won, capturing its most impressive victory to date.
Pierce should get 100 percent credit for the result.
His 29 points, coming off a consistent downpour of jumpers, carried the Bulls to the team’s best win of the season – a 71-65 win over the Phoenix. It was Buffalo’s third-straight victory, and Pierce’s third-straight 20-point outing. See a positive correlation?
In the past, Buffalo’s balanced scoring output always meant the team was in games, but there was never a player that could get a basket when adversity hit. It seems that Pierce, in his final year on the Amherst campus, has grown tired of the mediocrity and has made it his responsibility to give the team some offensive stability and leadership.
From there, the team can impose its will in other facets of the game. Buffalo’s tough and physical squad stymied Green Bay’s offense and limited Green Bay’s effectiveness in its pick-and-roll offense. They out-rebounded the Phoenix by nine and even handled the ball better than their opponents (Buffalo had 11 turnovers compared to Green Bay’s 14).
“They were long, strong and they bodied up,” said Green Bay guard Rahmon Fletcher. “They got into us and out-toughed us.”
Sounds like the Buffalo team we know: the gritty, tough squad that doesn’t bury teams, but physically beats them up.
After troublesome home losses against Vermont and Canisius, the Bulls are starting to get into form. Pierce has taken the leadership role, and the supporting cast is doing its thing. Two winnable games in Florida precede New Years, and then MAC play initiates.
But an inconsistent Pierce can’t show up by the time Jan. 9, Buffalo’s MAC opener against Miami, rolls around. His offensive explosiveness is needed if the MAC Championship is to land in Buffalo.
