Title-game bound: UB women's basketball defeats Cleveland State, will play for WNIT championship Saturday
The Bulls beat Cleveland State, 74-69, in a WNIT Fab 4 semifinal game Wednesday at Alumni Arena, and will play for the program's first postseason title in a national tournament in its history.
This one is for all the WNIT marbles.
What's in the bag? The WNIT championship.
To get that coveted bag, the University at Buffalo women’s basketball will look back at the entire stretch of time it has been together and assemble all the parts it takes to pursue a title – from the offseason conditioning sessions in June to the long stretches of the Mid-American Conference schedule, then down to the final seconds of a 74-69 win against Cleveland State on Wednesday at Alumni Arena.
University at Buffalo forward Chellia Watson (35) shoots against Cleveland State during the first half of
a WNIT Fab 4 basketball game at Alumni Arena on Wednesday, April 2, 2025. Harry Scull Jr./Buffalo News
The win against the Vikings propelled the Bulls into the WNIT championship game at 5 p.m. Saturday against Troy at Alumni Arena.
Troy (24-13) beat Illinois State, 99-96, in the second semifinal Wednesday in Normal, Ill. It will be the second meeting between the Bulls and Trojans; UB beat Troy, 80-78, in the season opener for both teams Nov. 6 at Alumni Arena.
It’s the furthest any UB men’s or women’s basketball team has played into the postseason, and it will continue the Bulls run into April.
“It’s fun, to me,” said UB guard Chellia Watson, who scored a game-high 21 points, including 12 in the final 2:17 of the first half. “It’s fun, getting ready for practice, getting ready to prep for the next team … knowing that if we win, we’re still fighting for another game. I’m just ready.
“We’ve got one more.”
Now, UB coach Becky Burke will get to see her team’s true mettle in a championship game.
“What defines our team is that a lot of players who came here went through a hard journey, because it is hard to play here at Buffalo,” Burke said. “You have to be built different. You have to be tough. You have to be hard-nosed. You have to be willing to be coached. You have to welcome a challenge. And you’ve got to walk through a lot of fire throughout the season.”
Call it another comeback for the Bulls (29-7), who trailed by four points at the start of the fourth quarter, before Terah Harness’ 3-pointer with 5:05 left in the game gave the Bulls the decisive lead.
Cleveland State (27-10) was 1 for 3 from the floor and had four turnovers in the final 4:31.
“We just do what we always do,” said UB guard Lani Cornfield, who scored 15 points and added seven rebounds, four assists and five steals. “We stay together. We’ve been down 16, 20 in the fourth quarter. A one-point deficit is really nothing for us. But we know what we’re about, we know what we can do and we’re defense. Even if our offense isn’t rolling, we know we’re going to get a stop. That’s all we’re talking about in a timeout. Stop, stop, stop.”
Defense has been part of what has defined the Bulls through the course of the season. But what’s stood out about the Bulls in the last four games in the past 2 1/2 weeks – an 84-82 overtime win against Massachusetts, a 76-64 win at Southern Indiana, a 71-64 win against Rutgers and the win Wednesday against Cleveland State – is their tenacity.
Or, as Cornfield put it, with a smirk: “I think that’s called ‘a dawg.’ There’s one in every single one of us, whether it’s the bench players or the ones playing on the court. Everybody is important, and everybody has done something in whatever way, to get us to this point.”
The Bulls are among the nation’s last teams still playing, whether it’s in the NCAA Tournament, the WBIT, or the WNIT.
They’ve matched the program’s single-season wins record, set in 2018 when the Bulls, coached by Felisha Legette-Jack and led by Cierra Dillard and Stephanie Reid reached the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA Tournament.
Burke thought of a text message exchange with Cornfield, the former Lake Shore standout who joined the Bulls this season as a graduate transfer from Southern Mississippi. Burke had just told Cornfield that the Bulls had gotten into the WNIT.
Never mind the marbles. Cornfield texted back with one question: Do we get rings if we win it?
Burke had one answer: Absolutely.
“And that’s what you come here to do,” Burke said. “I’ll probably screenshot it and post it, hopefully, after we cut a net down. But they wanted to play for something. They came into this tournament, they looked at the field and they had the confidence that we can go out and do it.”