NIU men’s basketball came up short against Buffalo and fell 74-59.

With the loss, the Huskies (2-17, 1-6 MAC) dropped their fourth straight game in MAC play.

NIU got off to a quick start and led the Bulls 7-2 on a three point field goal by Aksel Bolin.

Buffalo worked the ball back inside on its next two possessions to score on a layup by Mitchell Watt and then on a three-point play by Watt, who converted the free-throw to tie the game, 7-7.

With the score tied 10-10 with 12:26 left in the half, NIU’s Marquavese Ford hit a jumper to give the Huskies a two point lead. Watt came right back for the Bulls and scored on another layup to tie the game at 12 with 11:18 to play.

After Buffalo’s Javon McCrea scored on layup the Bulls led 15-12 with 8:44 left in the half. NIU’s Tony Nixon would answer with a three point field goal to tie the game at 15.

Buffalo would come back with a three point field goal of its own when Dave Barnett hit a three to give the Bulls the lead, 15-18.

The Bulls were able to control the game from this point on and would hold the lead for the rest of the game.

Buffalo was effective in the post and had a size advantage with Watt and McCrea that they exploited NIU with.

Both Watt and McCrea controlled the play in the post all game, as Watt had 10 points and McCrea had a double-double, finishing with 14 points and 12 rebounds.

“Me and coach had a talk last night about me being aggressive,” McCrea said. “I just felt that I needed to exploit myself tonight in order to get the win. In the MAC it’s hard to play on the road, and I just wanted to win this game.”

It was a physical game throughout and was officiated very closely with 48 fouls called between the two teams.

Both Kevin and Keith Gray of NIU fouled out with 11 minutes remaining in the second half to create an even bigger size advantage for the Bulls in the post.

“I feel like our offense is getting it into the post,” McCrea said. “I don’t think that the Gray twins affected us in any way of getting the ball into the post. We always do that, that’s what we do.”

Buffalo was also effective from the three point line as it connected on 11 three pointers, four of which were hit by Zach Filzen who had 12 points.

“It just happened today that that was there,” said Buffalo head coach Reggie Witherspoon. “I think most of them were good looks, I think today they did a good job of trying to take away our post players and clogging down on that and that left us with some pretty good looks from the three point line.”

It was another poor shooting performance for NIU, who shot 28 percent from the field in the game and were led by Abdel Nader who had 11 points while shooting 2-13 from the field.

“I thought that we had great looks and unfortunately our shots weren’t falling tonight,” said NIU coach Mark Montgomery. “We shot under 30 percent, and it seemed like there was just a lid on the basket today.”