The University of Akron men's basketball team saw its 19-game winning streak snapped on Saturday after falling 81-67 to the Buffalo Bulls at Alumni Arena.
(University of Akron athletics) The loss snapped Akron's nation's-best 19-game winning streak, including a seven-game run on the road. The loss dropped the Zips to 23-5, 13-1 in the Mid-American Conference.
Zeke Marshall led the Zips with 17 points, six rebounds, five blocked shots and three steals. Demetrius "Tree" Treadwell and Alex Abreu finished with 14 points each.
Akron finished the game shooting 40.6 percent from the floor (28-of-69), but connected on just 19.0 percent from behind the arc (4-of-21). Buffalo (12-17, 7-7 MAC) shot 56.0 percent (28-of-50), including 41.2 percent from long range (7-of-17).
Buffalo's Javon McCrea led all scorers with 26 points.
Marshall, with his fourth block of the game coming at the 16:07 mark of the second half, became just the second MAC player to swat at least 100 shots in a season.
It didn't take long for the Zips to tie the game to open the second half. Deji Ibitayo drove the lane to get the layup and the foul to send the game into the first media timeout of the second half tied at 41-all.
The lead would seesaw back-and-forth before Buffalo would open a 52-46 advantage with 9:53 to go in the game. That would be the UB advantage heading into the final 8:00 of the game (56-50).
Buffalo came out of the under-8 media timeout and opened up a 10-point lead at 60-50 with 7:06 to go, the Bulls' largest of the game to that point. Abreu, with the shot clock running down, would hit a 3-pointer on Akron's next possession.
The deficit would be too much as the Zips would fall 81-67 for the first time since Dec. 15 (at Detroit).
Both teams traded buckets early before the Bulls used a quick 7-0 run to open a 12-6 lead. The Zips would score eight of the next 11 points to close the gap to 15-14 by the under-12 media timeout (11:15).
Buffalo maintained the lead for most of the next four minutes, thanks mostly to the 3-point shot as the Bulls connected on 5-of-9 to open the game. UB would lead 24-19 at the under-8 media timeout (7:44).
Akron would fall behind by as many as nine points in the opening 20 minutes, but would head into the locker room down 37-32.
Akron shot 43.8 percent from the floor in the first half (14-of-32), connecting on just 1-of-6 from behind the arc. Buffalo closed the half shooting 52.0 percent from the field (13-of-25) and 50 percent from long range (7-of-14). Turnovers were tied 6-6 while the Zips held an 18-13 advantage on the boards.
Marshall led all scorers with 13 points to go with three boards, two blocked shots and two steals. Abreu and Treadwell had six points each.
The Zips return home for their final regular-season homestand of the season when they play host to the Miami (Ohio) RedHawks on Tuesday, March 5. Tip off is set for 7 p.m. ET on SportsTime Ohio.
Zips Notebook: Zeke Marshall is now just four blocked shots behind Ohio's Patrick Flomo for the MAC single-season blocked shots record (101) ... the loss also snapped a 14-game conference winning streak for Akron dating back to last season ... the Zips magic number to wrap up the MAC regular season title and the No. 1 overall seed in next month's conference tournament remains at one.
