Game 28, 2025-26: Buffalo (2/21)

[MikeUMA]

Next-to-last home game of the season coming up, and a rematch with Buffalo.

Important one in the standings. UM (6-8, 7th) is a half-game ahead of Buffalo (5-8, 8th). Buffalo is 1 game ahead of DNQ territory, with CMU and NIU tied for 9th at 4-9.

Not the regular season home finale, but UM is still making this one Senior Night. I'm old school, I don't like Senior Night any earlier than the last home game.

The 1995-96 squad will be honored, as we've mentioned before.
https://www.espn.com/mens-college-baske ... _/group/14
There's no official confirmation of who will be there, but Frank said "everybody." He means players.
(When that group was inducted into the UM Athletic HOF in September 2021, all the players except Inus Norville made it back, he wasn't able to get out of work.)
Cal and Bruiser have their game at Arkansas, and it ends when this one starts.

[Steve81]

Looking forward to the game.
To Mike's point, very important game in the standings and MAC tourney.
If it was today.

[InnervisionsUMASS]

Not the regular season home finale, but UM is still making this one Senior Night. I'm old school, I don't like Senior Night any earlier than the last home game.

Same here, it's weird. They are doing this for Hockey as well. I guess they assume the weekend game is better for it than the weeknight, maybe with parent travel and such... but I'm with you on this one.. old school, tradition, call it whatever you want.

[inthescoop]

Best case scenario for us to win the MAC tournament is we finish the season with the 6 seed. Round 1 will be an easier opponent than Miami or Akron. Giving us momentum into Round 2 where we may beat Akron (or hope for an upset), and then who knows what will happen in the other bracket. Maybe some team does have a Cinderella moment and beats Miami OH and I believe we can beat any other team in that bracket.

Not the regular season home finale, but UM is still making this one Senior Night. I'm old school, I don't like Senior Night any earlier than the last home game.

Same here, it's weird. They are doing this for Hockey as well. I guess they assume the weekend game is better for it than the weeknight, maybe with parent travel and such... but I'm with you on this one.. old school, tradition, call it whatever you want.

Senior night should absolutely be the last regular season home game of the year. What's their reasoning here?

[Floyd]

Just for LS71, they should have buffalo wings night for this game as a promotion

I agree with last game should be senior night, but I get their thinking being a weekend, travel, better crowd etc.

[MikeUMA]

To anyone who's been paying closer attention than me: what the heck happened to Buffalo?

On January 4, they were 13-2 overall / 3-0 MAC, with a NET of 132.
Today, they're 15-11 / 5-8, in 8th and final place for qualifying for Cleveland, and a NET of 191.

[MikeUMA]

I guess they assume the weekend game is better for it than the weeknight, maybe with parent travel and such...

This is probably the reason, easier for family and friends to make it on a weekend.

[MikeUMA]

Just for LS71, they should have buffalo wings night for this game as a promotion

Ha ha. Yeah, The Hangar should be all over this. We hear their "best damn wings in the world" commercial at least three times per broadcast on the radio/audio stream.

[InnervisionsUMASS]

The concessions are fine. But I'm all about fun promotions, and buffalo wings sound great to me!

[LS71]

Just for LS71, they should have buffalo wings night for this game as a promotion

Unless the hot sauce is good, they’d be cold like the hockey puck cheeseburgers!

[Floyd]

^ c'mon man, just trying to pump you up with some hot buffalo wings!. Hangar should have a booth
( although it might be tough to serve everyone in there).

[bobolink]

Getting way ahead of ourselves here, but the "if the tournament started today" is intriguing because Miami had 2 miraculous escapes in their 2 wins over Buffalo. In the first, Miami was down by 3 with 3 seconds left. Suder missed his 3 but the ball bounced their way and they got the buzzer beater. It was again tied in OT with 1 second left, and Suder hit a shot for the win. In their second meeting, Buffalo erased a big Miami lead and was down by 2 with 10 seconds left. Buffalo went for the win by shooting a 3, missed and lost by 2. I'd like to see a 3rd game between those 2 with UMass getting the winner on the second day in Cleveland. Of course that requires great improvement by UMass to end the season in 5th place and beat the 4th place team in the first game. A win vs Buffalo Saturday would be a giant and necessary first step to realize this unlikely but intriguing scenario.

[LS71]

^ c'mon man, just trying to pump you up with some hot buffalo wings!. Hangar should have a booth
( although it might be tough to serve everyone in there).

Yeah…I think the real problem is the facility itself. I don’t think it’s equipped for food preparation. Everything is brought in. I don’t know why…did the Commonwealth not include the infrastructure to cut costs when the building was planned?

Remember when the Baby Berk was there and you could bring the food into the Bill?

Last food comment-we’re making one last stop at Bub’s on the way to Saturday’s game. They’re closing for good at the end of the month.

[69MG]

Taken from a post today on the Buffalo message board - here's how you beat Buffalo:

Probably because MAC teams figured out how to play us: take away the 3. We can't rebound. Losing Freitag hurts a lot too.

Their leading scorer, Freitag (20 points/game), has missed the last 2 games after being in the concussion protocol. It's been long enough that he might play on Saturday. If he doesn't, they go from 20 points a game to their backup who averages less than 5.

[MakeMullinsGreatAgain]

Taken from a post today on the Buffalo message board - here's how you beat Buffalo:

Probably because MAC teams figured out how to play us: take away the 3. We can't rebound. Losing Freitag hurts a lot too.

Their leading scorer, Freitag (20 points/game), has missed the last 2 games after being in the concussion protocol. It's been long enough that he might play on Saturday. If he doesn't, they go from 20 points a game to their backup who averages less than 5.

wasn't Freitag in concussion protocol the games before we played Buffalo last time? Pretty sure he was and if this is his 2nd time in protocol I can't believe they'd let him play?