UB Bulls Beat: Breaking Down The 2006-07 UB Bulls Schedule

With Midnight Madness tip-off a mere ten days away, it’s time to take a look at the long-awaited 206-07 UB Bulls schedule, which was, in the style of any hip party guest, released casually late when compared to the other teams from the MAC. Here it is boys and girls:

* Mid-American Conference Games

All Times Eastern

Home games in BOLD CAPS

The first things that stand out are the marquee home games. Obviously, the visit by what figures to be a very good Pitt Panthers squad on December 9th is the highlight and toughest game but coach ‘Spoon’s squad will also host a Bracket Buster game (February 17) for the first time since they began participating in the annual bone thrown to Mid-Majors by the WWLIS. The good news about getting these games, as well as 13 others at Alumni Arena, is that it should give the inexperienced Bulls backcourt a chance to go through some growing pains in friendly confines.

MAC schedule makers did another solid for the four sophomores — Andy Robinson, Eric Moore, Sean Smiley, Greg Gamble and solitary frosh — Calvin Betts — that figure to see the majority of team at the guard and wing spots when they sent the MAC West’s best team — Toledo — to Buffalo for the only league scrap between those two squads.

Unfortunately, the Bulls play 15 road games, including an opening stretch that sees UB play 7 of their first 9 games on the road. With a squad that features several young players who, to put it charitably, were as erratic as drunks behind the wheel last season, those road games, along with the January road trip to Ohio and Akron, will likely determine how the Bulls fare in non-league and league play.

Roll into the Pitt tussle with a record of 4-5 and the youthful Bulls just might have enough confidence to ride the frenzy and energy of what’s certain to be a more juiced than Barry Bonds crowd at Alumni to an upset or near upset. Come into the Pitt game with a record of 2-7 and look out.

Similarly, UB’s once-promising 2005-06 season really began to fall apart when they came up empty on a trip to Northern Illinois and Toledo. Those two losses undermined whatever confidence the Bulls had built while sprinting to an 11-1 start. If potential MAC POY Yassin Idbihi and his frontcourt mate Parnell Smith can somehow steal a win or keep the game close at what figure to be two of the best teams in the MAC this season, then coach ‘Spoon’s squad just might build the sort of momentum and poise that could make the Bulls tough to beat not just in their final 11 MAC league games but, more importantly, in Clevo, where what’s almost certain to be the MAC’s solitary Big Dance bid, will be on the line.

If UB does get to the tourney this year, it will be because they win in Clevo.  Not because they go 24-6 in the regular season.  This just ain’t gonna be the year for that.

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