Getty CJ Massinburg and the No. 23 Buffalo Bulls will host the Central Michigan Chippewas.
The No. 23 Buffalo Bulls will host the Central Michigan Chippewas at Alumni Arena for a Mid-American Conference clash on Saturday.
The game is scheduled to start at 3:30 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 CMU vs Buffalo — that are streamed on ESPN+ are also available to be watched afterwards on-demand via ESPN.com or the ESPN app.
Central Michigan vs Buffalo Preview
Buffalo (19-3 overall, 7-2 in the MAC) hasn’t played since last Friday, when they fell to Bowling Green 92-88 on the road for just their third loss of the season. The Bulls ceded first place in the conference to the Falcons, whose fans rushed the court.
“Top 25 team, game for first place, everybody came out,” Buffalo head coach Nate Oats said, according to the Associated Press. “That’s kind of why we play the game. These guys spend thousands of hours working on their game. They like to play in front of people. I thought it was great. Hopefully, we can continue to draw great crowds, both at home and on the road.
“It’s fun to play in an environment like that. It’s just a little bit better when you play a little harder and dig in on the defensive end.”
The Bulls fell from No. 18 to No. 23 in the AP poll.
Senior wing Jeremy Harris went 3-of-12 from the field and missed all seven of his three-point attempts, scoring six points.
Last year, Harris launched 6.1 threes per contest and hit 41.8 percent of them. He’s shooting just 29.1 percent on 6.9 deep attempts per game this year.
“He has to stay aggressive and trust the work he’s put in,” Oats told school newspaper The Spectrum. “This isn’t the first time he’s gone through a slump. He had a bad start to last year and this year. Then he came out of it. For some reason, he’s gotten into slumps in the past and he has to shoot his way out of it.”
The slump seems to be team-wide.
A season ago, the Bulls rode one of the nation’s best offenses (84.6 points per game, sixth out of 351 teams) to the second round of the NCAA tournament. They connected on 37 percent of their threes and made 9.7 of them per game, good for 79th and 28th in the country.
The Bulls are hitting the same number of shots from deep per game this year, and they’re 10th in the nation at 84.8 points per contest, but they’re shooting at just a 34.1 percent clip from outside, ranking 191st.
The Chippewas (16-6, 5-4) snapped a three-game losing streak by besting Eastern Michigan 86-82 on January 29. They then crushed Western Michigan 85-64 on February 2.
Central Michigan senior guard Larry Austin Jr.’s 22 points, 11 rebounds, and five assists led the team.
“We have to be a team playing with a high intensity to win games,” Austin said, according to Central Michigan Life. “It’s just how I play and we play.”