Are UB and St. Bonaventure rivals?!?

[Mike_B]

LINK: Buffalo and St. Bonaventure are rivals, even if some fans disagree

I felt the need to ask this. Growing up, I always assumed each of the local Big 4 schools considered themselves rivals. Obviously, I understood some of the matchups were more meaningful than the others but I still felt they were important games in the local hoops landscape even with UB being a D1 newcomer. (Reference: I started watching Big 4 hoops in early 2000's)

I bring this up with St. Bonaventure getting ready to host Buffalo. I've seen many fans questioning if this truly is a rivalry game. I think it is and I definitely believe it can blossom into a much more heated game going forward if both teams sustain their recent success.

Each time SBU takes on UB, WNY supremacy is on the line. Both schools recruit at a decent level and despite their conference affiliations, both are normally comparable talent wise, playing an exciting brand of basketball. (Yes, I know St. Bonaventure leads the all-time series 10-2)

So what do you all think? Check out my column and let me know your thoughts!

[Deleted]

Come on. the only people who think this is a rivalry are people from Buffalo. Reasons this is not a rivalry:

1. SBU is 10-2 against SUNY Buffalo. Not only do we have a significant edge, but we have only played them 12 times. We have played Niagara and Canisius over 100 times.
2. UB has no fan base. Yes, they will be there now when the team is ranked, but how about when things get a little tough? Even last year in their "glory run" there were as many Bona fans in Alumni Morgue as there was UB fans.
3. We are in the Atlantic 10 they are in the MAC. Our rivals are St. Joe's, Dayton, Duquesne, VCU etc. They are in a league that does not compare to the A-10. They hate to hear this, but it is true. Just as we can't compare to the Big East the MAC does not compare to the A-10.
4. They have no sustained success. They have been good for four years. Oats will leave and this will end.

[geneseo]

Who cares about UB after this game? They will be paying directional Michigan and other MAC teams. People in Buffalo don't care and neither do we.

[Pinnum]

There are a few criteria to be a rival:

1) Same neighborhood. Cross town rivals.

Nope. 90 miles apart.

2) Peer schools who recruit the same students.

Nope. State school and a private school with no similarities.

3) Recent series of trading losses.

Nope the Bonnies are 7-1 in the last ten years.

4) Long history of playing each other with older alumni remembering the series.

Nope. Only 4 games played outside the last ten years.


We get it. Buffalo has a good team this year. But they are just a good team. This game doesn’t mean anything more than any other generic top-25 team. And in fact, likely means less given their lack of name recognition.

We know they like to talk about their NCAA bids. But winning the MAC auto bid isn’t impressive and doesn’t make me jealous. There is a reason the Bonnies don’t downgrade to the MAAC where they’d be assured many more NCAA bids.

We all know UB fans would give up their NCAA bids to play in the A10 or American. They know the MAC isn’t impressive. Which is why they really want this to be a rivalry.

[thebonafan08]

Dec 7, 2018 20:49:22 GMT -5 Pinnum said:

There are a few criteria to be a rival:

1) Same neighborhood. Cross town rivals.

Nope. 90 miles apart.

2) Peer schools who recruit the same students.

Nope. State school and a private school with no similarities.

3) Recent series of trading losses.

Nope the Bonnies are 7-1 in the last ten years.

4) Long history of playing each other with older alumni remembering the series.

Nope. Only 4 games played outside the last ten years.


We get it. Buffalo has a good team this year. But they are just a good team. This game doesn’t mean anything more than any other generic top-25 team. And in fact, likely means less given their lack of name recognition.

We know they like to talk about their NCAA bids. But winning the MAC auto bid isn’t impressive and doesn’t make me jealous. There is a reason the Bonnies don’t downgrade to the MAAC where they’d be assured many more NCAA bids.

We all know UB fans would give up their NCAA bids to play in the A10 or American. They know the MAC isn’t impressive. Which is why they really want this to be a rivalry.

Cool. This game is bigger than Niagara, Siena, & Canisius

[Pinnum]

Dec 7, 2018 21:04:39 GMT -5 thebonafan08 said:

Dec 7, 2018 20:49:22 GMT -5 Pinnum said:

There are a few criteria to be a rival:

1) Same neighborhood. Cross town rivals.

Nope. 90 miles apart.

2) Peer schools who recruit the same students.

Nope. State school and a private school with no similarities.

3) Recent series of trading losses.

Nope the Bonnies are 7-1 in the last ten years.

4) Long history of playing each other with older alumni remembering the series.

Nope. Only 4 games played outside the last ten years.


We get it. Buffalo has a good team this year. But they are just a good team. This game doesn’t mean anything more than any other generic top-25 team. And in fact, likely means less given their lack of name recognition.

We know they like to talk about their NCAA bids. But winning the MAC auto bid isn’t impressive and doesn’t make me jealous. There is a reason the Bonnies don’t downgrade to the MAAC where they’d be assured many more NCAA bids.

We all know UB fans would give up their NCAA bids to play in the A10 or American. They know the MAC isn’t impressive. Which is why they really want this to be a rivalry.

Cool. This game is bigger than Niagara, Siena, & Canisius

Any time you play a top-25 team it is a big game.

The Bonnies could be playing Nevada and it would be just as big. Not because Nevada is a rival but because they are ranked.

The other three teams you mentioned are significant games no matter the rankings of the teams.

[thebonafan08]

In terms of rivalry there is no difference between Siena, Canisius, Niagara, and UB to anyone born after 1980

[Pinnum]

Dec 7, 2018 21:50:54 GMT -5 thebonafan08 said:

In terms of rivalry there is no difference between Siena, Canisius, Niagara, and UB to anyone born after 1980

The three Catholics, in addition to being Catholic, have each beat Bonas in the last three years. They have been more competitive series not just historically but even recently.

[ohs73]

I reiterate -- from a tradition standpoint, UB is not a rival. The Big 4 is a Buff News-driven label. 12 games vs the Bulls does not constitute a rivalry.

Canisius and Niagara ARE. Catholic institutions like SBU located in WNY. The Little Three has been around for decades. Many years of home/away matchups. And a lot of thrillers among the trio.

And though it's only one game vs the Griffs and Purple Eagles each year nowadays, they remain big games on the Bona slate. And always will be.

[DoyleBonas]

I've heard a lot of Pats-Bills comparisons to Bona's-UB. This is generous to the Bills. I think it is a rivalry more like Pats-Steelers. The Steelers are 3-11 in the Tom Brady era (since 2001) against the Patriots. However, the Steelers have clearly been a top franchise in the NFL for the last 17 years. Pittsburgh has gotten manhandled by New England, regular season and playoffs, but most football fans would still call this a rivalry.

Bringing it back to us, we are 10-2 all-time against UB according to sports-reference (similar to NE-PIT). There are two important factors to consider. First, we have only beaten UB by more than 10 points once: last year. If you recall, we won by 11, but it was a very tight game until UB needed to foul at the end. Second: UB is really good outside of our games. They have made the NCAA Tournament a lot in the last decade. Sure, the MAC is a trash heap for basketball, but if you make the NCAA tournament as a top 13 seed consistently, eventually you'll strike gold, and they did last year vs. Arizona. That makes them a more visible program than us nationally. Even if we somehow beat Florida last year, UB would have upstaged us still.

We have no passionate regional rivalry. As a younger alum, I do hate Canisius/Niagara, but it's in a dismissive way, like how a Buffalonian might dismiss Buffalo Wild Wings. They aren't in anyone's basketball conversation. Duquesne, like the other two, has no fanbase. It's more of a geographic paring than a rivalry. Any UMass/SJU/VCU/other A10 rival can fluctuate based on who is good when. Siena isn't really regional, but even so, it's just a friendly rivalry, even if we don't win by 85789347 points like Wednesday. And no, beating Syracuse once (or twice, hopefully, in a few weeks) this century doesn't make us rivalry. That's a Pats-Bills rivalry (and Boeheim is closer friends with Lucifer than Belichick).

A Bona's-UB rivalry is part of the "rising tide lifts all boats" theory. It benefits UB because it injects some caffeine into that sleepy fanbase to hate someone not in DeKalb, Illinois. It benefits Bona's because it gives us a relevant opponent to play in the Buffalo area. It benefits the Buffalo sports scene because it gives the city/region a real basketball game. We shouldn't play Canisius/Niagara in their baby gyms. They should either come to Bona's or play in First Niagara/Rochester or even Binghamton/Elmira (another topic for another day). I'm ok with playing a true road game at Siena because the arena is huge and it brings in eastern NY/NYC/New England alums/prospective students. We've also filled UB's arena nicely, so I'm good with going there, plus they are closer to our level than the MAAC schools.

UB is a rival and that's ok. Now let's go turn that 7 in #17 into an L so they have 1Loss!

[tenthmountainbonnie]

My freshmen year at Bonas (2010-11), during a home game against UB, I was working event staff. Us cadets back then were forced to do this for one bullshit reason or another. After we beat them in a very close and spirited game, our students were walking out of the RC in front of the area where their fans sat. Naturally, our fans were taunting the UB fans since we had just won. This random middle aged, soccer mom lady started screaming at me to do something about it. I politely told her: “mam, I’m not a $@!&ing police officer. A lot of these guys are my friends. Sorry your team lost.” She then yelled some obscenities at me. Namely that I wasn’t going to graduate from college and that I was a loser. I smiled the whole time while waving my middle finger at her. Steve Campbell of the athletics department then looked at me with a look on his face of: “Jesus Christ. What is this kid doing”. Ever since then, two things have occurred: cadets aren’t used as event staff and I love to watch us beat UB. Go Bonas.

[tastylicks]

I voted no. I don’t believe we are or should be rivals with any SUNY schools. We have nothing in common.

If the city of Buffalo cared about UB it might be different though

[dadster81]

This has been an interesting discussion. My heart says "no way", but my brain is reminding me that I am getting old. Why we are not rivals? No epic games (Delmar throwing in a court long bucket against Niagara), or epic battles (the brawl in the RC stands vs Canisius), but these happened in the 1970's. And all the great games that happened in the earlier decades. When Catholic HS were numerous, the kids who attended all three schools were usually Catholic (I was not) and probably were rivals from 5th grade (CYO basketball), saw each other in bars during the summer, may have been related to each other. So the Little Three rivalry runs deep.

Why UB is now a rival. They are in our zip code, they are the best team outside of Bonas in our zipcode, and the school now has a bigger population that include kids that the Little 3 students went to HS with. All of this has happened over the last two decades or so. Will it ever mean as much as the Little Three? No. Why? They do not have a passionate fan base, they still come off as "sterile" (its entertainment, not a passion). For us, it is a positive = we get to play a home and home with a good to great team with a high RPI without incurring travel costs (see previous strands that discuss why we cannot get good teams to come to the RC), which we have the upper hand. So lets look at it this way. There is now a Big 4, of which we are the alpha dog, and UB is somewhere between #2-4 filling out the rest of the ranking.

Lets Keep them in their rightful spot today, roll BONAS!!

[class70]

For fans of a Franciscan university, we can be somewhat jesuitical in our reasoning. Even Canisius can not rival us in that!

[jjjacks17]

There’s a lot of people talking smack on twitter right now and it’s starting to make my blood boil. At least for today they’re our rival. I want this one really bad