Wildcats & Bulls To Continue Exhibition Series

Division II Daemen Meets Division I Buffalo For The Fifth Straight Season

6/18/2019 12:15:00 PM

By: By Mike Miranto, Sr. Associate A.D. for External Operations & Communications

AMHERST, N.Y. - In what has developed into a traditional starting point to the college basketball season for Western New Yorkers, Daemen College and the University at Buffalo will once again meet in a men's basketball exhibition game. The latest contest between the Division II Wildcats and Division I Bulls, who have met near the outset of each season since 2015-16, will take place Thursday, Oct. 24 at UB's 6,100-seat Alumni Arena with tip-off slated for 7 p.m. It will feature teams coming off remarkable seasons in their respective divisions; Daemen went 24-6 overall, captured the East Coast Conference regular season title and made their first-ever appearance in the NCAA Division II national tournament; UB posted a school-record 32 wins, spent 19 weeks ranked among the top 25 Division I teams in the country, and won their fourth Mid-American Conference Tournament championship in the last five seasons.

"We are always appreciative of a chance to play Buffalo, which has truly become one of the top programs in the country," said head coach Mike MacDonald, the veteran bench boss who is entering his 23rd season as a collegiate head coach, and his sixth at Daemen. "You know when we beat Canisius College back in 2014, it became difficult to schedule a Division I exhibition game. We have a lot of respect for [former UB head coach] Nate Oates in agreeing to start this series, and we really appreciate [current UB head coach] Jim Whitesell continuing it."

UB has prevailed in each of the exhibition contests over the last four seasons, including a 97-50 triumph last October. The closest of the four meetings came at the outset of the 2016-17 season in a game that felt more like late March as opposed to early November. The Bulls emerged with an 87-82 win in overtime, but not before the Wildcats led for more than 12 minutes in the second half.

Daemen will be seeking its second upset of a Division I program under MacDonald's guidance. In his Daemen coaching debut on November 11, 2014, MacDonald led the Wildcats to an 83-81 overtime win over Canisius just five miles down Main Street at the Koessler Athletic Center.

The UB-Daemen game marks the second high-profile exhibition contest to be announced on the Wildcats' 2019-20 schedule. Just two days after the Wildcats battle the Bulls, they'll trek east to face college basketball behemoth Syracuse University. Daemen's first-ever meeting with a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference was announced last month.

"For our guys to play the likes of Buffalo and Syracuse after less than 10 days of practice will be a challenge," said MacDonald. "But, you don't grow when you are comfortable, so we should be able to grow from these experiences."

Daemen will return 10 players, including four starters, from their 2018-19 team which spent a combined 16 weeks ranked in the two top 25 national polls for Division II, rising as high at No. 10. The returners are headlined by 6-foot-9 redshirt junior center Andrew Sischo (Guilderland, N.Y.) who earned East Coast Conference and NCAA Division II East Region Player of the Year honors, as well as being a second-team All-American last season. Daemen has reached the 20-win plateau in six of the last eight seasons, and they rank second among all Division II teams in New York State for total wins since MacDondald took the reins of the program prior to the 2014-15 season.

The Wildcats will open the 2019-20 regular season by participating in the Small College Basketball Hall of Fame Classic with games against defending Division II national champion Northwest Missouri State University (Friday, Nov. 1) and Missouri Western State University (Saturday, Nov. 2).

Ticket information for the exhibition contest against UB will be announced at a later time.

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