AMHERST — Reggie Witherspoon was incredulous. His Buffalo Bulls forced visiting Ball State into 25 turnovers Thursday, while giving the ball up just six times. They grabbed 16 offensive rebounds and allowed eight. Add it up, and UB had 27 more scoring chances.

What that led to was UB missing more field goals (50) than Ball State attempted (40) and losing 75-69 to fall to 3-3 in Mid-American Conference play after a 3-0 start.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Witherspoon said after looking at the stat sheet.

UB (10-7) shot 29 of 79 (36.7 percent) from the field and 4 of 25 (16 percent) from 3-point range.

“We had more good looks at the basket in this game than we’ve had probably in any basketball game I’ve ever seen,” Witherspoon said. “We looked like we didn’t have enough energy to barely get the ball to the rim. It’s disheartening.”

Devling further into the stat sheet, UB had a 36-18 advantage in paint points, a 24-8 edge in points off turnovers and 16 second-chance points to Ball State’s four.

But a Cardinals team that was shooting 41 percent on the season and 38 percent in MAC games, made 55 percent of its shots (22 of 40), including a sizzling 9 of 11 output from 3-point range. Ball State (10-9, 4-3) also got 22 points on 31 free throw attempts while the Bulls went a meager 7 of 13 from the line.

“I give a lot of credit to our guards who stepped up and made some big shots for us,” Ball State coach Billy Taylor said.

Jauwan Scaife, a freshman, had 16 points and was 5 of 7 from beyond the arc. Sophomore point guard Randy Davis scored 14 points on five field goal attempts, going 4 for 4 from 3-point range.

UB actually made six of its first eight shots to build an early lead, but trailed 38-31 at halftime after Davis hit a running 25-footer at the buzzer. Ball State built its lead into double digits in the second half before the Bulls rallied to with one point.

Sean Smiley scored eight points in a row during a 10-0 run that got the Bulls within 66-65 with 1:46 remaining.

Ball State nearly got a shot clock violation on its next possession before Randy Davis nailed a contested 3-pointer to push the lead back to four points. UB never got any closer.

John Boyer missed two free throws with 16.9 seconds left to crush UB’s comeback hopes.

“As the game went on and it was going to be a contest that was going to go down to the wire, our energy started shifting to the point of desperation,” Witherspoon said.

Max Boudreu led the Bulls with 15 point and rebounds. Sean Smiley scored 13 points while Pierce and Calvin Betts each had 10. Smiley and Pierce both shot 5 of 18 from the field and combined to go 3 of 18 from 3-point range.

“I don’t think too many people are worrying about the offense right now,” Smiley said. “There was a little hesitation, but it really just starts on defense and with some more energy.”

The Bulls had given up an average of 94 points in road losses to Kent State and Ohio, and concentrated on shoring up their defense this week in practice.

“I’d like to be able to say we’ve been working so hard defensively that we slipped up offensively,” Witherspoon said. “But we didn’t slip up to the extent that we threw the ball away. We had six turnovers. That’s the lowest we’ve had in a long time.”

If tired legs was the Bulls issue, an upcoming stretch of five games in 10 days won’t help. UB boards a bus today for 1 p.m. Saturday game at Northern Illinois, then will turn around to play Western Michigan at home on Monday.