Campus Watch

Big 4 Hoops Chat

UB Time Change

The start time of UB's final regular-season basketball game, at Alumni Arena against Bowling Green, has been changed from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. to accommodate a SportsTime Ohio broadcast. Seniors Mitchell Watt, Zach Filzen, Dave Barnett and Titus Robinson will be honored pregame.

-- Bob DiCesare

Big 4 Hoops Chat

Manuel leaves UB for UConn

UConn has called a 10:15 a.m. news conference Monday to announce the hiring of UB athletics director Warde Manuel.

UB President Satish Tripathi is making the UB Council aware of Manuel’s decision tonight and will issue a statement offering his congratulations to Manuel and announcing the school’s intention to initiate a national search for a new athletic director.

Manuel has been at UB the last six years and is taking over a UConn program that won a national championship in men’s basketball last spring but will not be eligible for the 2013 tournament because of APR issues.

"We are incredibly proud and thrilled that Warde will be joining the Husky family," UConn President Susan Herbst said. "UConn is one of the great American universities and our athletics program is the envy of many.

"It's because of this that we were able to attract an amazing pool of candidates from across the nation -- and an ideal, stand-out candidate of Warde's exceptionally high caliber. He will play the integral, and even transformational, role in the future of UConn athletics. It's a great day for this university."

UB-Western Michigan Game Analysis

UB 59, Western Michigan 57

How UB Won: Solid student support helped push the crowd total to more than 4500 and might well have been a factor at the finish. Western Michigan's Matt Stainbrook stepped to the line at the student end with 1.1 seconds left needing one to tie and two to win. He left both on the front rim and the Bulls completed their sweep of the West to run their winning streak to eight games.

Player of the Game: Mitchell Watt didn't seem himself in the first half but finished with 16 points, eight boards and six blocks. He short hook over Stainbrook made it 56-52 with 4:48 remaining and was UB's last field goal until Filzen's winner with 11.4 seconds on the clock.

Player of the Game II: Stainbrook is an interesting specimen -- a 6-foot-9, 290-pounder with a Kurt Rambis look to him and amazing agility for his size. He had 15 points (on 7 of 9 from the field), 11 boards and will be terrorizing the West for another two years. He's only a sophomore.

Stat of the Game: UB missed seven straight free throws beginning with 6:39 left and ending when Dave Barnett made the second of two with three-tenths of a second left. That kind of performance will get you knocked out of the tournament in a hurry.

Stat of the Game II: UB became just the third East school to sweep a season series against the West. Kent and Akron have done it multiple times. In fact, Kent has won 30 straight against the West dating to 2007.

They Said It . . .

Western coach Steve Hawkins on the new playoff format: "I like it and I don't like it. This is going to sound incredibly self-serving here in a minute but keep in mind that I said it before we ever got into this season too. I love the format in terms of it being the double-bye for the top two seeds. . . . I think it's deserved if you can get through this league. And the thing that's so dangerous, I've been in it now 12 years, you'd hate to see a team get No. 1 seed and then get knocked out in the first or second round, and that's very possible in this league. . . . Now the recommendation that we coaches made and moved forward that I didn't even realized didn't get passed until earlier this week, was that the division winner would get no worse than a 4 seed. Now we recommended that back in our fall meeting, spring meeting, I don't remember know which one it was. We recommended if you win your division that's worth something. Now whoever wins the West ... it's going to be very difficult for them to get all the way to a 4 seed."

Zach Filzen on sweeping the West: "I think it's big. Obviously in this conference it's such a battle you need to play well every single night to get a win."

Titus Robinson on the sweep: "I say it's huge. While we're going through the West we have to go on the road and play in some tough environments. This is the first time we've done it and we wanted to make history and we have."

UB Coach Reggie Witherspoon: "We knew this was going to be a challenge because they're good at one of the things we're really good at, which is rebounding."

What It Means: The Bulls remain alone in second place in the overall standing, a game behind Akron and one ahead of Kent.

In the House: A nice crowd of 4,561 at Alumni and a show of force by the student body.

Next Up: The Bulls finish up MAC play with five straight against the East beginning Tuesday at Kent.

-- Bob DiCesare

Big 4 Hoops Chat

Tressel taking job at Akron

Former Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel is moving back to the college game after a stint with the Indianapolis Colts by accepting an administrative position with Akron of the Mid-American Conference. His duties were expected to be spelled out at a news conference this morning. Tressel has a graduate degree from Akron and was part of the search committee that recently hired Terry Bowden as head coach of the Zips. Akron seems determined to rejuvenate a program's that's grown stagnant despite the presence of one of the best football facilities in the conference.

-- Bob DiCesare

Tepper to Head UB Defense

UB head football coach Jeff Quinn will continue his practice of hiring assistants with previous head coaching experience by bringing in Lou Tepper as defensive coordinator, The News has learned. Tepper has been the head coach at Illinois, Edinboro and most recently Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He also is a former defensive coordinator at LSU under Gerry DiNardo.

Tepper, 66, was a two-time conference coach of the year at Edinboro and was head coach at Illinois for five seasons beginning in 1992. He takes over the UB defensive coordinator position vacated when William Inge left the program to become assistant defensive line coach with the Buffalo Bills.

-- Bob DiCesare

 

UB-Ball St. Game Analysis

UB 73, Ball State 57

How UB Won: Its array of scorers tends to obscure UB's defensive prowess. But let's look at the numbers. The Cardinals shot just 36.8 percent in becoming the third straight opponent to fall below 60 points. They were outrebounded by 12. They had nine of their shots blocked. And they attempted just 12 free throws. And the Bulls didn't allow a second-half point by anyone other than Jarrod Jones until 7 1/2 minutes after intermission. Its when UB defends that it's at its best.

Player of the Game: Mitchell Watt played 37 minutes, scored a team-high 20 points, grabbed eight rebounds, blocked five shots and picked up four assists. And did we mention he was 2 of 3 from behind the arc? This might have been the best all-around game of his career. An outstanding senior season continues. He looks like he's on a mission.

Best Supporting Role: Zach Filzen went for 14 points and shot 4 of 6 from three. And those six rebounds matched his career high.

Caution Flag: Sixteen turnovers? Ouch. Most of those belong to the big men, who handle the ball frequently in the motion offense. But still. Twelve would be much more palatable.

Opponent Watch: Jarrod Jones, the Cards 6-9 senior center, has never looked better. His 21 points accounted for more than a third of the Ball State output. Watching him and Watt go at it was a treat.

They Said It . . .

UB Coach Reggie Witherspoon: "We played them last year and they shot the eyes out. I thought defensively and rebounding, well it's always a key but it was a big key here. For a team that rebounds that well I thought we did a pretty good job throughout the game."

Watt: "They have a lot of players that crash the boards and have gotten a lot of offensive rebounds so it kind of started with that on the defensive end to really box them out, get physical there and make sure they only got one shot. And that just kind of carried over to the offensive end."

UB Guard Tony Watson: "We preach a lot about staying together and playing as one unit and when we're able to do that and click on all cylinders we're one of the hardest teams to beat."

Ball State coach Billy Taylor: "We've been up and down. We've had a number of games where we've had guys make shots for us. I thought we got some good looks tonight, some open looks early, and when they didn't go down that's when our guys became hesitant and we stopped taking the good shot, the open shot, and we started forcing shots. And that just led to more problems for us."

What It Means: The Bulls have won five straight and are 6-2 in the MAC and tied with Ohio for second in the overall standing, a game behind Akron. Meanwhile, Ball State, which went 4-1 its first trip through the West, suddenly finds itself 4-4. The West just doesn't measure up.

In the House: Someone isn't doing a very good job marketing this basketball team. There were just 2,112 in the house and student representation was sad. Never mind all the excuses. Bona students show.

Next Up: The Bulls play at Toledo Saturday against a young Rockets team more dangerous than its 2-6 conference record. The road's a different animal.

-- Bob DiCesare

UB QB Recruit

UB QB recruit Collin Michael (Lexington, Ohio) was the No. 2 choice at Indiana and became available to UB when Gunner Kiel committed to the Hoosiers. When Kiel decommitted (he verbaled to LSU, then Notre Dame) Indiana came back for Michael but he maintained his verbal to the Bulls and signed Wednesday.

-- Bob DiCesare