How to Watch Buffalo vs Northern Illinois Basketball Online

Getty The Buffalo Bulls will visit the Northern Illinois Huskies.

The No. 16 Buffalo Bulls will visit the Northern Illinois Huskies for a Mid-American Conference clash on Tuesday.

The game is scheduled to start at 8 p.m. ET. While it won’t be broadcast nationally on television anywhere in the US, you can still watch a live stream of the game on your computer, phone or streaming device via ESPN+, the new digital streaming service from ESPN (no cable required) that has exclusive coverage to dozens of college basketball games–and several other sports–every week.

You can start a free seven-day trial of ESPN+ right here, and you can then watch a live stream of the game on your computer via ESPN.com, or on your phone (Android and iPhone compatible), tablet, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, PlayStation 4, Xbox One or other compatible streaming device via the ESPN app.

If you can’t watch live, all games — including Buffalo vs Northern Illinois — that are streamed on ESPN+ are also available to be watched afterwards on-demand via ESPN.com or the ESPN app.

Buffalo vs Northern Illinois Preview

The Bulls have won six straight since they fell to No. 20 Marquette for their only loss of the season, pushing their win total to 17.

On Friday night, they overcame 16 turnovers — the Bulls turn the ball over just 11.8 times per game, tied for the 36th-best mark out of 353 Division I teams — to best Eastern Michigan 77-65 and improve to 5-0 in MAC play.

“It took a long time to crack [Eastern Michigan] tonight,” Buffalo head coach Nate Oats said, according to The Buffalo News. “Our turnovers, really, hindered us from breaking that thing open until we did, but once we sat down and got stops and quit turning the ball over, we broke it open with about eight minutes to go.”

Bulls senior guard CJ Massinburg erupted for 31 points on 10-of-16 shooting, five rebounds, two assists, and a steal in 34 minutes of action.

“His play was pivotal for 40 minutes, because he’s such a leader for this basketball team,” Eagles head coach Rob Murphy said of Massinburg, per The Buffalo News. “He plays really good defense, he can hit shots from the outside, when they’re struggling, he creates penetration for himself and for others and all game, his team did a really good job of recognizing where he was and getting him the ball to be able to make shots or make plays.”

The team’s leading scorer at 17.8 points per game, Massinburg had struggled on the offensive end entering Friday night. He scored 13 points on 5-of-13 shooting the game prior and shot 2-of-7 for 10 points before that for his fourth- and second-lowest scoring performances of the season.

“There’s a lot of stuff going on, but you’ve just got to relax and realize that basketball is just a game,” Massinburg said, per The Buffalo News. “It’s something that you should enjoy and not be stressed out about.

“It was just internal pressure, but good thing I have great teammates and I have other guys that’s capable of carrying a team and putting up very big numbers. Our team is very good that I wonder, who do they focus on and who do they scout on? We usually have one to two guys we focus on, but our team’s so good I don’t even know who they focus on.”

The Huskies (10-8) opened their MAC schedule with three consecutive wins, but they’ve dropped two straight since, falling to Central Michigan 78-69 at home then losing to Kent State 78-68 on the road.

“Our guys have to make better decisions with the ball,” NIU head coach Mark Montgomery said after falling to Central Michigan, according to the Northern Star. “They were soft 2-2-1 pressing us and some 1-2-2 pressure, and we were advancing the ball, but we made some bad decisions. We were just playing a little too fast. You can’t have 11 turnovers in the first half and expect good things to happen.”

NIU senior forward Levi Bradley shot 11-of-21 from the field for a game-high 27 points.

“[The Chippewas] shot 60 plus percent in the second half,” Bradley said, per the Northern Star. “It’s almost impossible to beat any Division I team if you let them shoot 60 percent, especially at home. That’s just not acceptable. Defense cost us this game.”