BOWLING GREEN — Too much of Dyaisha Fair was not a good thing for Bowling Green State University on Wednesday.
The reigning Mid-American Conference women’s basketball player of the week stayed hot at the Stroh Center, scoring a career-high 40 points while Buffalo played lock-down defense in the first half, which led to an 82-66 Bulls victory over the Falcons.
The Falcons (6-5, 1-1 MAC) played arguably their worst quarter of the season in the first half. The second quarter ended with Buffalo outscoring BGSU 25-6, as BGSU made just 3 of 20 shots from the field and 0 of 10 3-pointers. Buffalo made 9 of 14 from the field and 3 of 4 3-pointers in the second quarter. The Bulls out-rebounded the Falcons 16-6 and at one point held a 22-point lead.
“A really disappointing first half for us,” Falcons coach Robyn Fralick said. “I mean, that was the difference in the game. Buffalo’s a really good team, and we got to learn a lesson from that moving forward.”
In the first half, the Falcons shot 20 percent from the field to Buffalo’s 58.1 percent, including making 7 of 35 shots from the field and 2 of 14 from 3-point range.
Elissa Brett made a layup to begin the second quarter and put BGSU behind by one point at 18-17. The Bulls (9-4, 3-0 MAC) then went on a 17-2 run that spanned 6:32 in the quarter to pull away with a 35-19 lead with 3:09 to play in the half. During that stretch, Buffalo made 7 of 9 shots to BGSU’s 1 of 13, and Fair scored seven points.
“One of our biggest things is energy, and we didn’t have any of that in the first half,” Falcons forward Kadie Hempfling said. “We came out flat, and that’s one through 14 of us. I think that’s really crucial for us going into the next game, is definitely learning from the film that we’re going to watch [Thursday] and then having a bunch of energy.
“Our first half we played was not very good. That was not BG basketball.”
BGSU’s offense was led by Amy Velasco’s 15 points. Hempfling scored 12 and grabbed a team-high six rebounds in her 100th start as a Falcon. Elissa Brett posted 11 points and hauled in five rebounds.
Bowling Green made 17 of 35 shots from the field in a too little, too late second half. Fair notched her 20th point on a crafty spin move around Brett and a short-range baseline jumper. with 6:03 to play in the third quarter. Hempfling made a 3-pointer to cut the Falcons’ deficit to 49-38 with 2:48 left in the third, but Fair responded with a heat-check 3 on the other end. UB outscored BGSU 10-5 in the final 2:28 of the third.
Bowling Green went on a 9-0 scoring run midway through the fourth quarter, but that was stymied by a 3 from Fair. Hempfling made a layup on BGSU’s next possession, and the Falcons held the Bulls down the other end, but a foul underneath the basket by Brett led to another 3 from Fair and a 73-58 Bulls lead with 4:22 to play.
But it all goes back to the first half, in a 20-minute span when the Falcons played without a matching of Buffalo’s energy.
“Our urgency of doing what we were supposed to do,” Fralick said. “We had a plan for what we were supposed to do, and we just weren’t getting into it quickly. We weren’t doing things with urgency. Buffalo’s way too good of a team to be late. You’ve got to be really sharp, and we were missing that.
“I loved our second half. We looked like a totally different team, but in this league, one half isn’t enough. It’s a lesson that we need to learn.”
Fair scored 26 or more points in her third straight game. She scored 26 against Central Michigan on Dec. 29, and followed with 28 on Saturday against Miami. She now owns the two single-game scoring highs among MAC players this season — she scored 34 points on Nov. 22 against Syracuse.
Fair made 14 of 22 attempts from the field and 6 of 10 3-pointers on Wednesday.
“She’s a phenomenal player,” Hempfling said. “Props to her, props to our guards guarding her. I feel like she’s going to hit a lot of tough shots. That’s what you’re going to get with her. She’s a very talented and elite scorer. One of the best in the MAC and maybe the nation, even.”
Meanwhile, the Bulls’ size showcased in scoring 20 of its 43 first-half points in the paint. By the end of the first half, Buffalo had three double-digit scorers: Fair, Dominique Camp (11 points), and Summer Hemphill (10).
Hemphill had grabbed seven rebounds to pace the Bulls 26-15 in the rebounding column in the first half. She finished with 19 points and 10 rebounds.
First Published January 6, 2022, 2:04 a.m.
