Loving the madness By Christopher Schobert Professional basketball never lasted in Buffalo, with the Buffalo Braves petering out in the late seventies and morphing into the long-lowly Los Angeles Clippers. Unlike baseball, there never seemed to be a major drive to bring a professional team back to the city, either. And several attempts in recent years to mount an amateur team have resulted in, mostly, eye-rolling. See the Buffalo Silverbacks of the American Basketball Association. (Who, you ask? The former Buffalo Rapids … does that help? No? Huh.) College basketball, on the other hand, is undergoing something of a renaissance in interest, for a multitude of reasons. The continued semi-success of the University at Buffalo Bulls under beloved head coach Reggie Witherspoon is one reason. The Bulls’ shocking three-point loss to Pittsburgh, then the nation’s number-two-ranked team, may rank among the most exciting games in recent local memory, and attendance at Alumni Arena has been fantastic. Okay, Niagara, Canisius, and St. Bonaventure have not had the greatest of seasons; still, the interest is there. But the big news in local college basketball is the return of March Madness to Buffalo. On March 15 and March 17, HSBC Arena will host first and second-round games in the 2007 NCAA Men’s Basketball Championships. Yes, the twisty path to the Final Four begins in Buffalo, and it’s going to be a pretty special moment in sports. This should make March pretty close to a perfect sports month. The football hangover has finally worn off, the hockey season is rocketing toward its close, and major league baseball has its opening day. But college basketball dominates the month, as it should—there is no better, more pulse-pounding time of year to be a fan. This is not the first opportunity Buffalo has had to host NCAA tourney games. In fact, the last time was just three years ago, in 2004, when St. Joseph’s and Connecticut emerged victorious from HSBC Arena. Pairings were not scheduled to be announced until March 11, so at the time of this writing, there was no telling which teams might be coming to town. What is certain is that there will be a massive influx of tourists and cash to the Queen City. Since the Bills’ Super Bowl runs of the early nineties, the national spotlight has cast its probing eyes on Buffalo only on rare occasions—the Sabres-Stars “no goal” fiasco, the brief run of Baby Joe Mesi—so this gives the city, its residents, and its businesses an opportunity to show off to the world, or, at least, those parts of the world that watch the first round of the Final Four. With that in mind, how thrilling would it be to see a local team make the sixty-four-team cut this year? Even if no local teams make the tournament—and let’s be honest, that will probably be the case—the local games should lead to increased fan interest. That’s great news for local colleges and even high schools. The bad news? The Buffalo games sold out long ago. So the only place for most of us to catch the action will be on the tube, or at a sports bar. Downtown bars and restaurants should be bursting over that three-day stretch, and it’s going to be a blast to bask in the orange glow of basketball excitement. It’s not that often, after all, that local sports fans truly get roundball-crazed, except when it’s Gus Macker time. Perhaps this will spur on a new interest in the Bulls, the Griffins, the Purple Eagles, and the Bonnies. And maybe it won’t. But for a few days, at least, the basketball bandwagon will have just enough room for all of us. In an example of enormously bad timing, Christopher Schobert recently decided to become a New York Knicks fan. Back to the Table of Contents Back to Top