dutchcountry7

The difference is that the top-100 team that would agree to a game in NYC is a more powerful brand name than the one that agrees to a game in Buffalo. If alumni are only going to turn out if it is a big brand name then NYC alums might turn out to see the Bulls play. Georgia, Memphis, Missouri, Stanford, Dayton, Georgetown, South Carolina, Providence, and Notre Dame are NOT going to agree to a game in Buffalo. But all of those teams might agree to a game in NYC where Buffalo is the home team. Is playing those teams in front of 2-5k Buffalo fans better than playing SouthernMiss, Northern Kentucky, or Lipscomb in front of 2-5k people in Buffalo?

Gonzaga said it took 10-12 years of winning before they could schedule home games. The closest they got was scheduling a game in Seattle, which would be like UB scheduling a home game in NYC. So maybe that's what is needed. Schedule a home game in NYC and then get a top-100 team to agree to that.

Lemoyne is a better than a lot of bottom D1 teams. Massey ratings has them ranked higher than the likes of Norfolk State, Monmouth, and Binghamton. Would we expect people not to show up for those teams? Either people are going to just show up because Buffalo is ranked and winning, or we need to start scheduling home games that matter. This will be the test. If winning alone will draw fans then expect a sell out.

Which mayor? Buffalo or Amherst? I am not sure how motivated Buffalo will be to promote a team that plays in another city. "Buffalo Mayor tells residents to go to the suburbs."

That's the problem. Home/Home deals are signed in advance. What school wants to enter into a home/home with Buffalo with the fear that (1) their coach will leave, or (2) the program drops off? You'd need Buffalo to sign Oats to a million dollar a year deal to give some peace of mind to other schools that he will still be there in two years for the back end of the home/home. And even then it might not be enough to convince them. You're over estimating how eager teams will be to play the Bulls.

This is not about the Lemoyne game. That isn't the problem. No one game, in a vacuum is the problem and playing a cupcake isn't a problem. The last five years have been the glory years, right? Last five years: Number of home non-conference games and top-two non-conference games: 2019 - 5, Southern Illinois & Marist 2018 - 6, St. Bona & NJIT 2017 - 3, Coppin State & Maine 2016 - 6, St. Bona & Canisius 2015 - 5, South Dakota State & Drexel The non-conference covers two months. There should at least two big games at home in that time. Marist is #212 in KenPom and they are one of the biggest games? Really? According to KenPom, St. Francis PA is actually the second biggest home game for the Bulls. You don't need not-20 teams. But you need at least top-150 teams at home. Not a full schedule. You can have a few scrubs. But two games need to be played at home before the new year. Luckily we get St Bona every other year so that is one big game.

You're not giving a product to market. The reality is that UB playing road games makes them like any other college team. What people want is a team to cheer for in person. I have like 10 sports channels that I can watch college basketball games on at any time and then there are all the streamed games. If I want to see a top-25 team play a quality team, I can watch it. But how many students get to watch their own school, as a top-25 team, play at home, in a dog fight? That is what makes programs. Seeing games in person is the novelty these days. Seeing them on TV is too easy. If all the games worth watching are away from Buffalo, then what's the point in even being a Buffalo fan while living in Buffalo? Might as well be a Syracuse fan. You can' still turn the TV on for the occasional Buffalo game while not attending games in person. It is no different than any other team you watch on TV without ever attending a game. By that logic, I am Loyola Marymount fan since I watched them play at UCLA this weekend. Of course, it wasn't in person.

Oh, no, I agree 100%. That casual conversation is real. But the problem is that you need competitive games for fans. You're not going to attract a student or casual fan to a game to watch UB blow out LeMoune. No one wants to sit through a lopsided game. Even the UB season ticket holders are making the way for the exits before the end of the game against Dartmouth. You need people to see competitive games with drama. It isn't like there will be a lack of games against big name teams. There will still be those games. It isn't like there still won't be a MAC championship and an auto-bid. This is how you build a fan base and don't use a program as a stepping stone. Anyone can schedule road games. Few programs actually build a fan base and a fan following.

But you're ignoring the students and fans. They want home games to care about. Right now it is games at home that don't matter and all interesting games are on the road. Might as well just be a Syracuse or Duke fan at that point as all their interesting games are also on TV.

When did the team get back. It will take a few days to adjust to the time change. That 5 AM game wasn't just hard on the fans.

This post and discussion lead to think about this... We all know that the Bulls are a good team that can't get any good games for the home fans. This year the team finally broke down and did an in-season home/home deal with Southern Illinois in order to get a good home game for once. Now the Bulls have a big non-conference game. My question is this: Would you be open to seeing more in-season home/home series? This would get bigger games at home but it might reduce some of the high level games. Would you be willing to trade the LeMoyne game at home and the Marquette game on the road for an in-season home/home with UNC-Greensboro, Vermont, Furman, Murray State, Belmont, or Wofford? If the Bulls were in a good tournament, it might not be too big of a hit to a schedule because you could still get some major games in a tournament (like the USF game this year). It is much easier to identify the teams that are going to be good this season than it is to forecast two years out. What do you think? Would you have a problem with two in-season home/home games to get rid of playing the non-D1 or sub-300 games at home?

This is the problem. Many teams are like SIU and Buffalo. You have middle tier teams like them who are in the top of their conference and think they will have a good team. They want to get a home/home with another good team like themselves but they can't do it. Why can't these schools who all want games with each other get a deal done? Because they both want to get the home game when they are going to have a good year. Buffalo and SIU both wanted to start the series at home. No one was willing to play them at home. They worked and worked to try to get teams to do a home/home that started at home but no one would agree to it. This is the curse of being a good team in a not so good conference. Everyone knows that the typical course of action is you sign a home/home with a team that is good and then the second year of the deal is worthless because the coach leaves to take a job somewhere else, players graduate or transfer and the you went to play on the road when they are good sends you a lousy team making it a bad deal for you. So, rather than trying to broker two home/home deals which is even harder than one, they both broke down and decided the only way they would get a good home game is to do an in-season home/home deal. This is the curse of UB. Just can't schedule any good deals.

And student haven’t gotten into games until later in the season. They tend not to go to the ones early.

Just looked it up. SDSU was the best attendance for an OOC game that year and that includes playing local teams which should attract fans.

South Dakota State? Another program people on the East coast know nothing about? Is that really shocking?

No. It is a game. Just like Central Penn, Nazareth, and Pitt-Bradford were. The two exhibitions were played before the first game.

Yes.

What exhibition game?

“We survived the first year. We're surviving Year 2 and we feel we're going to blossom in Years 3, 4 and 5." I hear they they are expecting good teams in the future. The talent should improve.

Yeah, yeah... I hear from the Bona fans that they have four players out with injury. That doesn't matter. The Bulls have to blow them out. They have to. Not only because it will give us bragging rights and then maybe everyone in Buffalo will stop cheering for Bonas instead of the Bulls but if we don't blow them out it will really hurt the chance of an at-large bid. You have to blow out teams that are sub-300 and Bonas is sub-300. A close game is as good as a loss.

What's even better: 322 St. Bonaventure Atlantic 10 1-5 We are going to blow them out so badly!

Those are not going to be tough games. They will blow out SIU at home. And they will blow out the horrible Bonaventure team. There aren't really any road blocks this season. If anyone has a bad game there is plenty of depth to pickup the slack. The schedule is pretty easy for this team. Anything less than 10-0 going into Syracuse would be a failure.

You don’t think they would turn on the team like Chargers fans did?

But the love to tailgate. You don’t think they would just start doing it on Saturday rather than Sunday?

If Bon Jovi had bought the Bills and moved them to Toronto how many fans would go to Bulls games?