BUFFALO, N.Y. — Wednesday night UB's next opponent, Southern Illinois, was taken apart by Murray State. The Bulls beat the Saluki's earlier this season on the road, so the Bulls had best be prepared for a Southern Illinois team with plenty to prove.
Head coach Nate Oats told Two On Your Side's Stu Boyar, "They've shown if they have a bad loss, they usually bounce back really good. We got to be aware of that. We got to play better than we did the first time, we weren't very good on offense. They held us to the lowest output we've had all year on offense." UB won that game 62-to-53. Senior guard Dontay Caruthers said to expect the best effort from the Saluki's. "They're a really hard nosed team. They just lost by 30 to Murray State, so they're going to come in backs against the wall and play hard and give you everything they got."
UB is currently ranked 14th in the country. Before this season, no Buffalo basketball team had ever been ranked. Although a well grounded group, led by their seniors, there's always a chance a team could get a little full of themselves. Oats told Boyar, "I think the way you fight that is you keep getting better every day, you point out everything you're not very good at and we got plenty of that right now, so if we can just get better at the stuff we need to get better, at I think then you improve and you kind of fight that natural instinct to kind of believe that you're a little bit better than maybe you are."
After Saturday's game at home against Southern Illinios, UB faces two tough road tests at Syracuse and at Marquette. Nick Perkins knows the Bulls can't afford to look past Southern Illinois. "Syracuse, great program, great history you know you obviously want to go in there and beat them but S.I.U. that's a tough team. That's one of those teams that will come in here and beat you so you got to focus on that and just take it one game at a time."
Tip off for Saturday's game at Alumni Arena is scheduled for 2-pm.