Smith recruited most of the players on the roster, and the team already was using several strategies of his invention. Smith served as an assistant under previous coach Blair Brown Lipsitz, so making the transition to the top job was seamless. And in this, his third season at the helm, he said Buffalo really is beginning to feel like his program. Even in defeats, they are proving to be more competitive, as evidenced by close matches with Power 5 teams Syracuse and West Virginia.įor Smith, these are tangible signs of the strides his program is making. The Bulls enter the weekend at 9-5 overall - already more than twice as many matches as they won last season in their 22-match schedule. But I do think we can compete with any team on any given night.” We still have a long way to go before I can say definitively we should win this conference. But I like what we’re doing, and I think we have a good opportunity to battle them. “It’s a really tall order,” Smith said about the upcoming matches with BGSU. If the Bulls can stun conference favorite Bowling Green on Friday, it would be the first time the program has started 3-0 in the MAC. Though coach Scott Smith acknowledged his program still might be a year away from being a serious contender in the MAC, he believes the Bulls are on the right track and can push the conference’s traditional front-runners sooner rather than later.īuffalo opened MAC play last weekend by sweeping two matches from Miami (Ohio), a team it lost to twice last season. That’s not how the players and coaches at Buffalo view it. And being picked last in the MAC East Division preseason poll seems to confirm the Bulls’ status as an expected also-ran.
On the surface, Buffalo wouldn’t appear to be much of a threat to upset the volleyball hierarchy in the Mid-American Conference. 500 in conference play just once in this millennium.Ī program with zero history in the NCAA Tournament.
#BUILDING GAMES FOR MAC FULL#
A first-time head coach in just his third year at the helm.Ī roster full of freshmen and sophomores.Ī program that has finished above.
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