Not every student at St. Bonaventure is from Buffalo, but sometimes it certainly seems that way. Many of these students are, to extreme degrees, interested in the professional and college sports of that great town. To cater to our proud Buffalonians, the BV is excited to unveil the “Buffalo Brief”, a breezy synopsis of all things Buffalo athletics.
Sabres
General Ted Nolan continues to lead the great tanking crusade with disturbing commitment, as the Sabres remain putrid. The team has dropped their last 11 contests and remains willingly confined to the basement of both the Eastern Conference and the NHL. The Sabres, at 31 points, are trailing (leading?) the Edmonton Oilers by two points in the race to the bottom.
The Sabres travel to Edmonton next Thursday in a match that fans of quality hockey are cautioned to avoid. This hockey house of horror will be the second stop on the Sabres’ four game barnstorm across Canada, which starts in Calgary on Tuesday, doubling back from Edmonton to Vancouver on Friday and concluding in Montreal on Feb. 3. The Sabres will be back in the First Niagara Center on Feb. 5 to host the St. Louis Blues.
UB Men’s Basketball
The Bulls have been a welcome surprise as conference play in the Mid-Atlantic Conference continues. UB took on an ambitious non-conference schedule, fending off weaker opponents while putting up respectable losses to top-ten powerhouses Kentucky and Wisconsin. The team currently sits at 3-2 in the MAC following a loss to Central Michigan on Wednesday night, and will travel to Ohio University tomorrow for a 2 p.m. tip-off.
Buffalo is currently rated as the 55th best team in the country, according to ESPN’s Basketball Power Index (BPI), a convoluted series of formulas and statistics designed to take into account a variety of factors , including strength of schedule and quality of victories. Junior forward Justin Moss leads the team in points per game (18.3) and rebounds per game (9.6). The Bulls have a shot at the MAC’s auto-bid into the NCAA tournament.
Bills
No brief would be complete without a mention of the kings of the Buffalo sports scene, the Bills. Their season may have ended over a month ago, but as any 21st century fan knows, the NFL has a 12 month calendar, and as a result, football is never far from people’s attention. The Rex Ryan Show is in town, while the dearly departed Doug Marrone is taking a prestigious position as the offensive line coach for one of the worst teams in the conference.
Ryan and Bills’ GM Doug Whaley have begun something of a football love affair in the wake of Marrone’s ousting: in a recent piece by The Buffalo News, Ryan and Whaley were in clear agreement on the trajectory of the franchise and how to build on the Bill’s surprising winning season.
