UBigbobby

Did not deserve this. As bad an effort in all areas of the game as I've seen in the last few years. Just putrid. Team has been trending down in their last few games. We all knew it was going to bottom out at some point. Extremely disappointing that it happened to NIU which will go down as a BAD loss for tournament purposes. This team just hasn't seemed to care very much in conference. Too big for their britches? Oats needs to get them back in line.

Yea, but Ohio is a major research university. They aren't amazing academically, but they're a major university center with like 27,000 students. While they lag far behind UB in academics, in terms of overall profile, they're closer to UB than a directional Michigan or regional Ohio school like Kent or Akron.

UB has simply not shown up. At all. Not there mentally, not fighting physically. The look like ghosts out there. Terrible.

Meh. Most of the negatives for UB are borne out of the University historically not investing money in athletics (formerly due to SUNY rules, more recently due to administration). Statistically as an institution of higher education, UB is a Big Ten or American Conference school. Not a MAC school. With the exception of UB, Miami, and Ohio, the MAC consists of academically middling regional 2nd and 3rd tier publics. UB's peer institutions are schools like Michigan, Rutgers, UCONN, Wisconsin, WVU, Pitt etc. I'm not pulling this out of thin air. https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/peers-network Keep in mind that data is from 2012 and UB has grown in size and improved measurable in academics since then. Athletically, UB is a MAC school. As an institution, it is not. If there is ever an investment in athletics, the school could and should be in a larger conference simply due to the university profile. In the latest WSJ/Higher Ed Times rankings of national public universities UB was #28. 25-30 went like: 25 - Penn State 26 - Virginia Tech 27 - Minnesota 28 - Buffalo 29 - Illinois - Chicago 30 - NC State The only MAC school in the top 100 was Miami at #78

After the 2nd half of the season that Jackson put up, he almost has to stay at UB. I don't think he's draftable anymore. He has the raw tools and potential to be drafted, but he shit the bed pretty bad at key times and honestly, in some areas have regressed. Declaring for the draft would be a massive mistake on his part.

It's cool to see, but I have little doubt the committee will use it the same way they use RPI. They'll use it as evidence to get a bubble team in they like from a P5 conference and just ignore it when it doesn't work in their favor.

Yes. And scandal ridden 5-7 Maryland beat Big 12 finalist 9-4 Texas too. I said blow out though. They beat Temple by a touchdown. Good win for sure, but when this team faced real tests that would take them to the next level, they pretty consistently choked. Army. Ohio, NIU, Troy. Listen, I'm not making this up. I was on a flight a few days after the MAC championship loss with Lance Leipold. A few passengers and I were talking to him on the jetbridge waiting for our bags for a bit and he brought up how his team needs to a find a way to be more resilient and learn how to play up for big games. He pointed out himself without prompting how they had a chance to be ranked, then looked like dogshit (my words) vs Army to blow that chance. Again were getting votes and could have been ranked and got their shit handed to them (my words again) vs. Ohio. Similar thing vs NIU. This team needs to borrow some of that grit and resliency that the hoops team has because when their backs are up against the wall, they run away crying.

Honestly I think this game is what SHOULD have happened. UB is a fantastic team and SHOULD dominate the MAC and finish with just 2 or 3 losses total on the season. They should get a good seed and have the ability to make a sweet 16 run. As good as we all know they are, I think #14 was also a bit generous. I think they're definitely a borderline top 25 team but in overall quality, UB is not #14 (they're worse) and Marquette is not #20 (they're better). I think Howard going off skewed things a bit, but I also think the better team won. My feeling is if they play on a neutral court, Marquette squeaks out a win and if this game is in Buffalo, the Bulls win a close one. They are not as good as Marquette, but they're also not that far behind overall.

The MAC went 1-5 in bowl games. This conference is an absolute embarrassment at football. Congrats to us for being the 2nd best team in clearly the worst conference in college football. Also, Jackson's regression throughout the year has been absolutely staggering. This team is a soulless paper tiger like their coach. For as much as I love the basketball team and their heart, and attitude, and collection of personalities (and coach), I dislike this football team just as much. Blow out crap FCS and MAC teams and when they face anything resembling a real test the wheels fall off.

Jeremy White is a tool. Howard Simon thankfully will at least acknowledge there is a good D1 program in Amherst from time to time.

So a little less than double UB.

Understand your point, but don't give Bona's nearly that much credit. They haven't been good since the 70s. Program is below .500 in the A10 the last 20 years. They have a culture because there is a fuck all else to do in Olean but drink and go to basketball games.

Unfortunately it does matter Derek. We talk about how the program gets tepid support because there's no culture of supporting the program and they're seen as "minor league" because they have traditionally been bad and play in a mid major conference. However, building that culture is a combination of winning (which the team has done the last 5 years) AND getting buy in from the local community. Like it or not, the only exposure most people in WNY will get to the program is through the local media outlets like the Buffalo News, local telecasts, and WGR. It doesn't help that most games can only be watched on subscription ESPN+ online. If the team is going to truly grow the fanbase and generate real local buzz they need the local media to realize this is a big deal and important for the WNY sports scene. Like it or not, WGR and company ARE local trendsetters when it comes to sports in WNY and if these outlets don't treat this like a big deal, the majority of WNY fandom won't either. Like you, I'm tickled pink over what's happening but the lack of knowledge about what's happening around WNY is downright frightening. We all want the program to move up to bigger and better things, and a better conference, but this year suggests that even if they somehow moved to the Big Ten it might not matter to Joe Bill's Fan, and that's a problem for the long term viability of the program to compete on a high level. You are right about your Sabres point, and I agree. Buffalo as a sports town is a complete myth. Buffalo is a BILLS town and occasionally Sabres when they do something worth noting. Otherwise, we might as well be Miami or Atlanta for the overall support of athletics in WNY.

#14, and the only peep you'll hear in the Buffalo sports media is when WGR does a scoreboard update. I'm a born and raised Buffalonian, and I'm continually embarassed by this supposed "sports town". This is a Bills and Sabres town, and that's it. A city of losers (I'm feeling very salty today)

ehhhhhh. Listen some years the MAC has a good showing and can rival the A10 in quality. This may be one of those years. But the MAC is a perennial one bid league and is usually in the middle of the top half of mid-major conferences. A10 is usually better and maybe more importantly gets much more respect nationally. There's nothing wrong was admitting that the MAC just isn't a very good conference in general. Makes what UB is doing even more impressive.

We're both right though. UB does play in a crappy conference, has no athletics history or tradition, and has poor support for being a 20,000 student school. I'm a proud UB alum and all of those things as true. Which isn't really surprising considering the program didn't even go D1 until 1994 and has been a mid-major since then. Hopefully all of that changes, but as of right now, it's all true. However it is also objectively true that the Bonnies have not been much of anything since the 1970s. The program went from 1978-2000 without a single tournament appearance. Since then, from 2000-today they've had as many as UB has had in the last 4 years alone. The Bonnies coach is going to become the winningest in school history with a .556 winning percentage. The Bonnies have been a middling A10 program since the 70s. That's just objective fact. Forget comparing them to UB even, just look at St. Bonaventure in a vacuum. They play in a multiple bid conference, and have made the tournament 3 times since the 1970s. 3 times in the last 40 years. In the last two decades the Bonnies are BELOW .500 in the A10 How can you even justify saying the Bonnies are anything but a middling A10 program? See? We're both right. Bonnies fans overrate themselves today because of success in the 1970s, and UB fans are too few and far between with little history or tradition. How about we work on building that winning tradition and gaining more fans and Bona's works on being more than a team that wins the A10 once every 20 years, and then both programs play each other every year, and develop a real rivalry.

Love the You're a SUNY chant. Small private colleges like Bona's are dying slow and painful deaths and a school like UB provides a higher rated education than Bonas by far (as the Wall Street Journal, US News, or AAC&U). Being a SUNY school is a point of pride.

I fear most will not. Take a look at the voters and the way they've voted. Look at where most of them are from. It also doesn't help that the Bonnies haven't been a truly good A10 program since the 70s. This is far from a throw away win, but the USF and SIU wins move the needle more than 4-6 Bonas. At the end of the day, I doubt many of the voters will do much more than look at UB and go, "oh they're stil undefeated, gotta find some room in my poll".

UB won't move up much this week unless teams 10-15 absolutely implode. UB beat a D2 school and a fairly poor A10 school. They did what they're supposed to do but nothing that will likely move the needle. Maybe a spot or two but I doubt higher than 15. Next chance to make a move will be Syracuse and Marquette, though SIU could be a speedbump. They'll need to stay focused. No one escaped the MAC unscathed, so they probably need to win all their out of conference games except either Cuse OR Marquette, and then only take one or two MAC losses to good MAC teams to remain ranked and have a good seed. Good news for UB is that finally pretty much all the AP voters have UB in their top 25 except some mouthbreather from Kansas City who has 4-3 Florida in his top 25.

UB students used to. When I was a student back in the late 2000s UB had a reputation of being a brutal place to play, largely because of the students who took things way past normal cheering. I vividly remember some of the horrible shit many of us used to scream at the opposing bench (which was in front of the student section). Not proud of it, but college kids are going to be college kids when they get passionate. However it's an even worse look for Bona's being a Catholic school, but they probably have more pressing matters, like shifting around rapey priests and all.

It hasn't been. It's been one sided in Bona's favor, and they've only played like 14 times ever. Unlike Niagara and Canisius who UB plays just about every year, until a few years ago UB and Bona's hadn't. If UB can build on this and Bona's can find a way to be relevant more than once every 40 years, I hope it turns into one. There are a lot of Bonnies fans and alums in Buffalo that like to shoot their mouths off about being the only good program in WNY because they were pretty good in the 70s. Well, that's becoming less and less relevant with age and with the rise of UB.

Seeing a LOT of extremely salty Bonnies fans on twitter and Facebook. For a long, long time the Bonnies were seen as the only program in WNY approaching anything resembling quality, mostly because they were very good in the 70's. They've mostly been rubbish since then, but so have Canisius, Niagara, and UB, so Bona's could ride on their 1970s accomplishments. I think a lot of Bonnies fans are upset that the current trajectory is that UB is becomming the best program in WNY and has achieved more in the last 5 years than the Bonnies did in the last 2 decades. I really, really want the Bonnies to be able to build a consistently relevant program again. It would be great for both UB and Bona's to be able to count on a quality win or not bad loss each year because both programs are solid. However Bonnie's fans will need to come to grips with the fact that right now, UB is simply better than Bona's in ever facet of the game and are better than any Bonnies team since the 70s.

In my convertible freezing our asses off.

I remember when Pitt used to be considered a good team!

Hell I remember being so excited that they even made the damn NIT that Turner Battle/Bortz/Idbihi year that you and I drove to St. Joes in Philly to see them play. Seeing both the football team (who should be ranked) do so well along with both basketball teams is just mindblowing. I did not think UB could do this without joining a power conference which I still am skeptical of ever happening. The next fight is trying to get the WNY sports community to care, which by and large...they do not.