There were plenty of good seats available at some local college basketball games this season. By Budd Bailey It’s a good time to examine the just completed local men’s basketball season. While the NCAA tournament is about to take over the spotlight nationally – including six games right here in Buffalo - there’s still time to poke at the year closer to home.   It wasn’t a particularly encouraging season in most ways. Canisius showed a little life this season going 10-21, 5-15

Around the local basketball community, people figured Benjamin Bill wouldn’t be back at Daemen this year.. Bill was the reigning East Coast Conference player of the year. In the NIL era of college sports, with the money flowing, surely some Division I school would lure away a marvelously skilled 6-10 center. Head coach Mike MacDonald understood the realities. Last March 19, three days after the Wildcats lost to Aquinas in the DII regionals, MacDonald took his team out for chi

By Budd Bailey Looking for a little relief from this historic cold snap in Western New York? Don’t count on the area’s sports teams for a respite. In particular, the area’s men’s college basketball teams were particularly unsuccessful in providing a diversion. Our Big Four of Canisius, Niagara, St. Bonaventure and the University at Buffalo played six home games from Friday to Sunday. They combined to go 0-6. Brrrrr. There was bad news elsewhere, as you might know. The Sabres

By Budd Bailey There hasn’t been a large amount of sunshine and warmth around Western New York. You may have noticed that. The gloom might be a little more amplified in the Koessler Athletic Center these days. Canisius put up a good fight but couldn’t close it out again, this time to Marist by a score of 88-86 in overtime. After opening the 2026 portion of the schedule with three straight wins, the Golden Griffins (8-14, 3-8 MAAC) have dropped six in a row in January. The las

By Budd Bailey With 7:39 left to play, it seemed that Canisius had all of the momentum on its side in its rivalry basketball game with Niagara at the Koessler Athletic Center. After a slow start, the Golden Griffins slowly climbed back into the game, and ripped off seven straight points to take a 50-45 lead. After all, as that noted basketball fan Isaac Newton once said (more or less), things going in motion tend to stay in motion. Instead, it was the Purple Eagles that took

By Budd Bailey In the big picture, the Canisius men’s basketball team accomplished its primary goal Friday afternoon. It defeated Fairfield, 85-81, in the Koessler Athletic Center in its first conference home game of the season. As for how it happened, well, that was the unusual part of the day. Those in attendance saw a couple of basketball oddities along the way that made the game unusual and borderline memorable. But winning is always appreciated around the Main Street cam