“The Buffalo Four”

[MICKEY]

Now that our basketball season is over I wanted to get your opinions on an idea I thought of last week while having dinner at The Anchor Bar in Frederick, Maryland, yes I said Frederick, Maryland. The name The Little Three had a lot of meaning in basketball circles in the era of pre conference affiliation. You had three small Catholic colleges in the same geographic area playing on a competitive level against some of the very best basketball schools in the nation at that time. All played in the University Division of the NCAA, today’s equivalent of Division One.
Well along comes the University at Buffalo who wants to join the club, they were different, they were a state school and they were big. So someone comes up with the idea to call the four schools the “Big Four”. WHAT! What is so big about it? We have all had a few years in the past twenty to crow about but none of us has made it “BIG”. I guess it was a play on Philadelphia’s Big Five, which by the same standard should now be the Big Six when Drexel became a Division One school. I doubt if I asked anyone in Frederick if they ever heard of college basketball’s Big Four they would not have any idea what I was talking about. So if we really want to create some identity for the four Buffalo region schools why not adopt a name they says who we really are, “The Buffalo Four”. What do you think?
By the way the wings and weck combo was as good as it is in Buffalo (and the Falls) and there will soon be an Anchor Bar in Cincinnati. Now that they are going national maybe it would be time to start the college basketball season with the eight team “Anchor Bar Chicken Wingtip Off Classic” in Buffalo every year

[jhart]

UB will have to move forward with a new coach as Whiesell was let go after four years.

[le]

His record was well above .500 in his four years at UB . The The WSU Shockers coach was also canned with a plus .500 record. Wow .

Vin. Any new marketing technique would be welcomed for the old Big 4!

[NewEnglander]

I like the idea of an 8 team format involving the Buffalo 4. Each local team takes on an outside opponent and as to where it goes from there it plays out in the games. Thus none of the Buffalo 4 play the other 3 ( as at most they can play 2 of the 3 in that format) and it is possible but not probable that none of them play each other at all. That can alleviate the concerns of some of the local teams being in a Buffalo only tournament. Please pass on this suggestion to those in charge as I don't have any connections at all.