[81alum]

i followed my fellow poster's advice and signed up for espn + 7 days free, then cancelled after.

to my eyes, buffalo has an outstanding defense. they switched well and quickly. we had very few uncontested shots.

 we also looked quite sluggish. they were much quicker on defense. our team today would have lost to tennessee by 20.

in addition, the refs strongly favored buffalo. buffalo knocked it out of our hands a dozen times and not one was called a foul. we stand still on a drive to the basket and are repeatedly called for the foul.

Yes, the officiating did play a role.  The old rule that "the hand is part of the ball" seemed to be interpreted to mean anything below the elbow was part of the ball!  Many of those turnovers would have been reach-in fouls in another game.  But we might have benefited too--Alanna had only 2 fouls.  If they had called the game tight it might actually have been worse for us on a day that no one other than Alanna was scoring.

[81alum]

i followed my fellow poster's advice and signed up for espn + 7 days free, then cancelled after.

to my eyes, buffalo has an outstanding defense. they switched well and quickly. we had very few uncontested shots.

 we also looked quite sluggish. they were much quicker on defense. our team today would have lost to tennessee by 20.

in addition, the refs strongly favored buffalo. buffalo knocked it out of our hands a dozen times and not one was called a foul. we stand still on a drive to the basket and are repeatedly called for the foul.

Yes, the officiating did play a role.  The old rule that "the hand is part of the ball" seemed to be interpreted to mean anything below the elbow was part of the ball!  Many of those turnovers would have been reach-in fouls in another game.  But we might have benefited too--Alanna had only 2 fouls.  If they had called the game tight it might actually have been worse for us on a day that no one other than Alanna was scoring.