the spectrum volume 64 issue 61

THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT PUBL ICAT ION OF THE UN IVERS I TY AT BUFFALO , S INCE 1950

Wednesday, March 25, 2015ubspectruM.coM VoluMe 64 no. 61

THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT PUBL ICAT ION OF THE UN IVERS I TY AT BUFFALO , S INCE 1950

HOUSING ISSUELOOK

FOR THE HOUSE

ICON INSIDE

PAGE 4

PAGE 10

PAGE5

climb

to big timeBuffalo gains

national

exposure

on the way

to first-

ever NCAA

tournament

The ‘wild west:’ students share their stuggles with landlords, off-campus housing

Housing rates: How much are students paying this year compared to next?

The luck of the draw: disect-ing UB’s dorm lottery system

JORDAN G

ROSSMAN

SENIOR S

PORTS E

DITO

R

Despite

playin

g in a

Mid-

Major c

onfer

-

ence a

nd ha

ving a

small

amou

nt of

suc-

cess th

rough

out it

s Divis

ion I h

istory,

UB

Athletic

s has

said i

t’s bu

ilding

“Americ

a’s

next b

ig-tim

e colle

ge ath

letics

brand

” for

the pa

st two y

ears u

nder

the N

ew Y

ork

Bulls In

itiative

or #NYBI.

After t

he men’

s bask

etball

team’s h

is-

toric se

ason, m

aybe it

’s finally

on its way

to doing i

t.

The Bull

s (24-10

, 12-6

Mid-Ameri

-

can C

onferen

ce) w

rapped

up th

e best

season in progra

m

history

last

week

that inclu

ded

the

team’s

first-ev

er

MAC Tourn

amen

t

cham

pionship an

d

NCAA Tourn

amen

t

appear

ance.

Buf-

falo de

feated

Cen-

tral M

ichiga

n 89-8

4

in the co

nferen

ce

cham

pionship game

on Marc

h 14 an

d fell

68-62

to West Vir-

ginia i

n the r

ound o

f

64 as

a No.

12 se

ed

on Marc

h 20.

“At th

e mid-

major le

vel, it

’s very

hard

to get to the

tournam

ent,”

said

head

coach

Bobby

Hurl

ey. “Y

ou alm

ost have

to win yo

ur co

nferen

ce ch

ampionship to

go. I

apprec

iated

how hard

it would

be

and i

t was

a hard

journ

ey. It

wasn’t c

om-

pletely

smooth th

is year

but there

’s a te

s-

tamen

t to th

ese gu

ys will

to win. Y

ou

hope you’r

e doing a

ll the r

ight th

ings in

a progra

m to w

in a ch

ampionship an

d

they did

that

this year

.”

The NCAA Tou

rnament

gives

team

s

like B

uffalo

and o

ther M

id-Majo

r pro-

grams n

ational

expo

sure i

t wou

ld no

t

norm

ally re

ceive.

Acco

rding

to W

hite,

the tea

m was ment

ioned

more tha

n

9,300

times

on so

cial m

edia s

ince B

uffa-

lo made

the t

ourna

ment, w

hich e

quate

s

to rou

ghly $

25.7 m

illion i

n ad r

evenu

e.

Buffalo

was fea

tured

on nation-

al med

ia suc

h as E

SPN, a

nd was

the

“popula

r” up

set pick

at the

begin-

ning of t

he week

, culm

inating w

ith a

select

ion nod fro

m Preside

nt Barack

Obama.

Hurley

said

that en

trance

to

the tourn

amen

t was

“trem

endo

us ex-

posure”

and

was “th

e best

possible

platform

for u

s.”

Senior f

orward

Xavi

er Ford

is co

n-

vinced

the nati

onal att

entio

n will be

exponen

tially

benefi

cial to

the t

eam in

terms o

f recr

uiting.

“I’m ju

st hap

py for o

ur gu

ys,” F

ord

said.

“Ever

yone n

ow kn

ows w

ho Buf-

falo is.

”

Athletic

s has

been

trying

to in

crease

Buffalo

’s exp

osure

since

White a

rrived

in 20

12 an

d imple

mented

NYBI, whic

h

has re

brand

ed UB as

New

York

’s flag-

ship u

nivers

ity for

colleg

e athl

etics. T

he

outlin

e of N

ew Y

ork St

ate is

featu

red

on th

e both

the b

asketb

all cou

rt and

the

footba

ll field

, and

Buff

alo’s j

erseys

and

logo

predo

minantl

y fea

tures

the word

“New

York” r

ather

than “

Buffalo

.”

Last ye

ar, U

B Athlet

ics put

$1.8

mil-

lion in

to the m

en’s t

eam –

seco

nd to

football, w

hich A

thletics

inves

ted near

-

ly $6

.7 millio

n into –

and

more than

$1.2

million in

to the w

omen’s b

asket-

ball tea

m. In m

arketi

ng acro

ss all

sports,

Athletics

poured i

n more

than $3

1 mil-

lion to

promote the B

ulls, w

hich in

clud-

ed co

ncert ta

ilgate

serie

s and g

iveaw

ays.

Athletics

made a

large

push to in-

crease

atten

dance

at bask

etball

home

games

this year

. The t

eam in

trodu

ced a

tuitio

n givea

way as

well as

clothing a

nd

other ite

ms. The r

esult:

two of t

he high

-

est at

tendan

ces in

the h

istory

of Alum

-

ni Aren

a, one o

f which

was

the high

est

in a deca

de.

Roughly

1,900

of the 6

,607 f

ans w

ho

atten

ded

Bulls’

MAC East clin

ching

game a

gainst

Bowlin

g Gree

n on Marc

h

6 were

stude

nts.

The m

en’s

baske

tbal

l tea

m p

oses w

ith

the

MAC C

hampio

nship

trophy

afte

r

thei

r 89-8

4 vic

tory

ove

r Cen

tral

Mic

higan

in Q

uicke

n Loan

s Are

-

na on M

arch

14.

JORDAN O

SCAR

THE SPECTRUM

SEE BIG

TIM

E, PAGE 2

ANGELA BARCA, THE SPECTRUM

Senior forwards Will Regan and Xavier Ford embrace one

another after Buffalo’s 89-84 MAC Championship victory over Central

Michigan on March 14 in Cleveland, Ohio.

Head c

oach B

obby Hurle

y cu

ts d

own

the

net a

fter

the

Bulls’ M

AC Cham

pi-

onship

vic

tory

on M

arch

14 in

Quic

ken

Loans A

rena.

ANGELA BARCA, T

HE SPECTRUM

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The student sections of home games were perhaps more filled than they have ever been, and the students followed the Bulls on the road to Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio for the MAC Tournament and NCAA Tourna-ment respectively.

There were roughly 55 True Blue mem-bers who attended the Bulls’ away game against Akron on Feb. 7. More than 200 stu-dents traveled down to Cleveland to watch the Bulls play for the MAC Championship. According to junior communications major Shane Patterson and True Blue member, the vast majority of the 5,266 fans that attended donned the Buffalo blue and white.

It at least seems Buffalo’s “March Mad-ness” is beginning to back up the marketing UB Athletics has been putting out.

But the national exposure and success didn’t come easy.

The preseason polls picked the Bulls to place fourth in the MAC in the beginning of the season after graduating three starting seniors from last year including UB all-time leading scorer Javon McCrea.

Three players that were supposed to be on the team were taken off the active roster. Ju-nior forward Jamir Hanner was removed from the team for undisclosed reasons right before the season began, and freshman guard Mory Diane was suspended for the season

due to academic ineligibility after appearing in four games. Sophomore guard Deyshon-ee Much left the team for unknown reasons about a month before the season.

When Hurley and his staff saw the team workout for the first time, he said they knew the team was talented, but were unsure of how it would translate to the court.

Their question was answered in mid-No-vember when Buffalo traveled to Lexington, Kentucky.

The Bulls played No. 1 Kentucky, which is still undefeated and currently a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament on Nov. 16 in the second game of the season. Although Buffalo was de-feated 71-52, the Bulls were one of a few teams to hold a halftime lead against the Wildcats.

“The Kentucky game was memorable … For our players to step up to that challenge and play in that environment and that crowd, it was a wake up call about how good this team could be,” Hurley said. “They played fearlessly. I think we played that way both ends of the floor.”

The team continued its “fearless” start to the season, going 9-3 in nonconference play including yet another halftime lead against a top-10 program in the country in Wisconsin.

But Buffalo began MAC play with a 6-6 re-cord after a three-game losing streak that in-cluded its only two home losses of the season. The third loss of the streak was a 75-74 loss to conference runner-up Central Michigan.

At practice the following day, Hurley said there wasn’t much shooting going on. The

usual practice monotony was replaced with mainly conditioning and film tape. Although the team didn’t want it, Hurley said it made them better. The response: an eight-game winning streak that propelled the team to a bid to the national tournament.

“I thought we were gaining momentum,” Hurley said. “We went on the road and won some games. There were a lot of games where we got a crowd support. I think the community likes watching our team … All these guys have made this what it is. It’s excit-ing about what is happening.”

There are many components to this year’s team that contributed to its success. Junior forward Justin Moss was named the MAC Player of the Year one year after McCrea, his predecessor at the power forward posi-tion, took home the award. Moss averaged a MAC-leading 17.6 points and 9.1 rebounds and was one of the most improved players in all of college basketball.

Perhaps one of the biggest surprises was the emergence of Ford. Ford was one of the most touted prospects to ever enter the pro-gram. After three subpar seasons, he earned a starting spot and averaged career-highs in points (9.3) and rebounds (6.3) while exceed-ing in a part of his game that he hadn’t used prior to this season – the 3-point shot.

“It’s just hard work,” Ford said. “I always knew I was capable of making the shot. I got tired of people slacking off on me, I felt disrespected. It comes from hard work and I couldn’t have done that without my teammates.”

And at the helm of the team was Hurley, the coach that guided the team to its first na-tional appearance in his second year as head coach. On Monday, Hurley was named one of 16 finalists for the Hugh Durham Nation-al Coach of the Year award, which recogniz-es the nation’s best mid-major coach.

And the players think the same way. Af-ter the Bulls were defeated in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, Ford said he “loves Hurley to death” and “has done so much for me.”

On Tuesday, multiple reports surfaced that Hurley is a candidate to take over the head coaching position at DePaul University, al-though nothing has been confirmed. ESPN reported that Hurley will interview with De-Paul this weekend and is the frontrunner. Hurley called it “speculation” and hasn’t “had the chance to do anything more than just stay in the moment with my team,” according to The Chicago Tribune.

No matter what the future holds for the head coach, Buffalo will return six of its eight top scorers and will welcome four four-star recruits next season. Whether or not Hurley is with the team or not next season, there is one aspect of this season that won’t change.

“Last week, I was talking to [Xavier] and the biggest thing I noticed is whenever I look at [him], we can say we’re MAC champs,” said senior forward Will Regan. “And that can never be taken away.”

email: [email protected]

Continued from big time, font page

ubspectrum.com 3Wednesday, March 25, 2015

OPINION

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WILLIAM KRAUSEPOLITICAL COLUMNIST

On Monday, Texas Senator Ted Cruz became the first major candidate to an-nounce his 2016 presidential candidacy – over a year and a half before the election.

The likelihood of Cruz winning the Republican nomination is slim, and win-ning the general election is even less so. He is a polarizing candidate, who is fa-vored only by the far right Tea Party fac-tion of the Republican Party. He is best known for leading the fight to shut down the government in 2013, and reading Dr. Seuss on the Senate floor in a 21-hour filibuster attempt to derail the Affordable Care Act.

New York Republican Congress-man Peter King, who may be eyeing his own presidential bid, said Cruz had “the marks of a carnival barker, not the leader of the free world.”

But following Cruz’s announcement, a substantial amount of citizens were not only questioning Cruz’s ideology, but his eligibility. Cruz was born in Canada, and until 2013, held dual United States and Canadian citizenship.

His candidacy evokes an interesting question about the Constitution: Can someone born outside of the United States run for President?

The short answer is yes, but the long answer is maybe.

Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Con-stitution states: “No Person except a nat-ural born Citizen... shall be eligible to the Office of President.” The only oth-er qualifications are to be at least 35 years old and to have been a U.S. resident for at least 14 years.

The words “natural born” are where some see a problem.

To most, natural born means born within the borders of the United States. You may remember learning in grade school that in order to be president, you need to have been born in the Unit-ed States. That would seem logical. It would make sense to want the leader of the United States to be born in the coun-try, because (although highly unlikely) we wouldn’t want someone simply com-ing to the United States, living here for a short time and then deciding to run for president. We would want someone who was born and raised in the United States; someone that would be able to under-stand the American people and lead ef-fectively.

But being born in the United States hasn’t always been a requirement to run for President. According to an NPR arti-cle, the Senate passed a resolution in 2008 that made it clear that John McCain, who was born on a military base in the Pana-ma Canal Zone, was able to run for presi-dent. Barry Goldwater, the 1964 Republi-can nominee (who would go on to lose to Lyndon Johnson), was born in the Arizo-na Territory before it acquired statehood.

“Natural born” has also been defined in the Naturalization Act of 1790 to mean citizenship that is a result of one parent who had U.S. citizenship at the time of birth, and the other who is a U.S. resident. Senator Cruz claims he is a nat-ural born citizen because his mother was a U.S. citizen and his father was a U.S. resident at the time of his birth in 1970.

An answer is far from clear. Like most things in the Constitution, “nat-ural born” has no definitive definition. While the part of the Naturalization Act that defines natural born may be uncon-stitutional, we would need a ruling from the Supreme Court that says so. This has not happened because no candidate born outside of U.S. borders has ever won the presidential election.

Getting the Supreme Court to clarify the clause is its own issue. We not only would need a candidate born outside U.S. borders to win an election, but we would also need someone to sue about it. It is unknown if a potential plaintiff would even have legal standing to make this challenge, because the challenger would need to specify how this impacts them directly. This is a seemingly simple task that can be hard to do in Federal Court.

Unfortunately, we will probably not know what exactly natural born means, and will have to abide by the interpreta-tion that was afforded to John McCain and Barry Goldwater. There are numer-ous reasons why Ted Cruz should not be president. His abuses of the filibuster, his extreme rhetoric, the fact that he is dis-liked on both sides of the aisle, his vision of abolishing the IRS are just a few – but his Canadian birth isn’t one of them.


Cruz candidacy brings with it interesting

constitutional questions

The (Canadian) President of the United States

For a few shining moments last week, it seemed like every-one was rooting for the Buffa-lo men’s basketball team. From ESPN to The White House, pre-dictions of an upset and support for Buffalo’s underdog team abounded.

The magic of the matchup be-tween No. 5 and No. 12 seeds, the excitement behind the Bulls’ first NCAA tournament appear-ance, the likability of Buffalo’s players – it all seemed like the perfect Cinderella story in the making.

But it just didn’t happen.Becoming media darlings

doesn’t mean much on the court, and that was all too apparent in the Bulls’ 68-62 loss to West Vir-ginia.

Upsets, by their nature, can’t – and shouldn’t – be relied upon. In the days leading up to the game, it was easy to believe the sports writers and the lists, the rankings of most likely upsets, all calling for Buffalo to fulfill the storyline everyone but West Virginia fans wanted to see play out.

Instead, Buffalo fans watched heartbreak take over, and now UB supporters must reconcile with the loss and start looking ahead.

The Bulls didn’t make it far in their first-ever NCAA Tourna-ment appearance, but now that it’s over it’s time to look ahead to their next March Madness game. It’s time to figure out what needs to be done to ensure that in 2016, the Bulls are once again the team that captivates the nation.

Making it to the tournament this year was a huge victory, even if the team lost. But the signif-icance of the Bulls’ appearance hinges on what the team does next. If Buffalo can make it back next year, Athletic Director Danny White’s dream of a big-time athletic program becomes a lot more legitimate.

The Bulls made it to the na-tional stage this year, and if they can keep coming back, the

team – and UB’s other athlet-ic and academic programs – can become more of a household name, bringing with it better re-cruitment options and increased pressure to perform.

Buffalo’s tournament appear-ance doesn’t solely affect the men’s team. The expectations on the women’s team are elevat-ed as well. They didn’t rise to the challenge this year, as they failed to earn a MAC Championship and lost in the first round of the Women’s National Invitational Tournament.

Though head coach Felisha Legette-Jack has done an admira-ble job reshaping a team that his-torically struggled, she now must carry on after an unsuccessful post-season and a weakened ros-ter. This next year poses greater challenges than this season, and expectations are higher than ever.

But the men’s team is fortu-nate in that the majority of the team’s roster is returning next year, so it’s not unrealistic to ex-pect another successful season. But that all depends on who is manning Buffalo’s sideline.

Head coach Bobby Hurley’s success and name recognition as a star Duke point guard make him a hot candidate for bigger jobs elsewhere, and he is now rumored to be the frontrunner for the head coaching vacancy at DePaul.

Hurley’s presence is critical to continued success for the Bulls. Although his eventual departure to a bigger program seems inev-itable, White needs to pull out all the stops to keep the coach here as long as possible – long enough for UB to establish a na-tional reputation.

Despite the loss to West Vir-ginia, the victory of making it to March Madness has given the Bulls momentum. Now is the time for the team to take advan-tage, embrace the spotlight and make it even farther.

UB can still fulfill those stor-ylines of upsets and underdogs – next year. But only as long as Hurley is manning the team.


For program to con-tinue upward trajec-tory, White must find way to keep Hurley

in Buffalo

After historic season, Bulls must march onward

When Gov. Andrew Cuomo laid out his five-point plan for ethics reform, he proclaimed his party was creating a new standard for campaign disclo-sure, one which even merited its own catchphrase: “Explain the money.”

But now that Senate Republi-cans expect Cuomo himself to “explain the money,” the gover-nor is balking.

Republicans are calling for Cuomo’s partner, Sandra Lee, to disclose her income and other personal financial information.

Lee, who hosts a television show on the Food Network and has multiple culinary business deals, owns the home in which Cuomo and Lee currently re-side. The residence is valued at $1.2 million, and Lee’s net worth is reportedly $20 million.

There is no suspicion sur-rounding Lee herself, and the law isn’t just about the governor and his girlfriend – after all, the pair began dating before Cuo-mo became governor, and there is no evidence of any conflicts of interest.

The issue instead lies in the lack of transparency from any state employees who are un-married but have domestic part-ners and are therefore shield-ed from any requirements of fi-nancial disclosure.

Married couples have to share their financial information, so couples with similar levels of commitment should face similar expectations.

In the wake of the arrest of former Assembly Speaker Shel-don Silver, who is accused of abusing his position and using his second job as a personal in-jury lawyer to pocket millions in bribe money, it’s beyond obvi-ous that greater transparency is needed in Albany.

State lawmakers, and their partners, regardless of how those partnerships are defined or certified, need to be open about their employment and in-come, so it can be determined that there are no conflicts of in-terest.

Perhaps a requirement of fi-nancial disclosure may feel like a violation of privacy, but such intrusion is necessary, and a sac-rifice that state lawmakers need to accept in exchange for their privileged positions.

The state also wouldn’t be the first to impose such a require-ment – it’s established as law in Alaska and Maine, as well as New York City.

New York should join their ranks, and take an important step in fixing a very broken eth-ics system.

Individuals who have earned

the right to run the state and make decisions on behalf of New Yorkers must accept that they haven’t earned any form of impunity.

Rather, they and their fami-lies must accept that power and privilege brings along responsi-bility too, and the necessity for transparency.

Cuomo and Lee need to re-alize this. The governor can-not justifiably continue to call for ethics reform and increased transparency while refusing to disclose information about his own lifestyle.

This proposed policy is not about only Cuomo and Lee, but the many state employees with similar partnerships.

But the governor and his partner do serve as an effective illustration of the problem: the state ethics agency has defined Lee as part of the governor’s first family, allowing her to fly with Cuomo on state aircraft.

Lee’s not married to Cuomo, but she’s by his side as he runs the state. And yet, the state can-not require her to disclose fi-nancial information. That needs to change, and if Cuomo is tru-ly serious about his dedication to ethics reforms, he must try to make it happen.


Cuomo must follow his own rules Governor’s pursuit of ethics reform undermined

by his lack of transparency

ILLUSTRATION BY HARUMO SATO

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THE SPECTRUM

Editorial BoardEditorial BoardEDITOR IN CHIEF

Sara DiNatale

MANAGING EDITORSRachel KramerEmma Janicki

OPINION EDITOR

Tress Klassen

COPY EDITORSAlyssa McClure, Copy Chief

Anne FortmanEmma Fusco

Natalie Humphrey

NEWS EDITORSTom Dinki, Senior

Ashley Inkumsah, Asst.Charles W Schaab, Asst.

FEATURES EDITORSGabriela Julia, SeniorDan McKeon, Asst.James Battle, Asst.

ARTS EDITORSJordan Oscar, SeniorTori Roseman, Senior

Brian Windschitl

SPORTS EDITORSJordan Grossman, Senior

Quentin HaynesBobby McIntosh Asst.

PHOTO EDITORSYusong Shi, SeniorKainan Guo, Asst.Angela Barca, Asst

. CARTOONISTS

Harumo Sato Joshua Bodah

CREATIVE DIRECTORSJenna Bower

Kenneth Cruz, Asst.

Professional Staff

OFFICE ADMINISTRATOR Helene Polley

ADVERTISING MANAGER

Kevin Xaisanasy Alex Buttler, Asst.

Melina Panitsidis, Asst.

ADVERTISING DESIGNERTyler Harder

Derek Hosken, Asst.

Wednesday, March 25, 2015Volume 64 Number 61

Circulation 7,000


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TOM DINKISENIOR NEWS EDITOR

When Craig Laudani and his roommates first visited a Stockbridge Avenue apart-ment near South Campus and found bro-ken tiles, trash on the carpet, a gas canis-ter in a closet upstairs and nails sticking out of the floor, they were assured it would be cleaned up and fixed by the time they moved in in August 2014.

It was not. “This should have been the first sign that

we weren’t dealing with honest landlords,” Laudani said.

The house was not fixed until October. After graduating from UB and moving out in December, Laudani had to make a seven-hour drive back from Long Island to Buf-falo and sit in the landlord’s office for three hours just to get his month-overdue secu-rity deposit back. And he’s still waiting for a check for an additional month of rent he was incorrectly told to pay.

Laudani had never looked into the back-ground of the property management com-pany, Sarale Management LLC, that he and his roommates rented from before signing the lease. And it’s not an uncommon sto-ry for UB students, according to Dan Ryan, director of Off-Campus Student Services.

Ryan said students living in off-campus apartments or houses often face issues with their homes and struggle to get their secu-rity deposits back. He said students often don’t look into the property or the landlord before signing the lease.

Ryan and the Office for Off-campus Stu-dent Services started a website in Septem-ber 2013 that only lists properties that have a certificate of occupancy or safety inspec-tion within the last 36 months. He encour-

ages students to only rent from landlords that are willing to have their apartments inspected because he says it’s likely those landlords will be more dependable for re-pairs and matters such as security depos-its. He also warned students against signing a lease before knowing if the apartment is up to code and information about the land-lord.

“Otherwise it’s sort of like the wild west out there,” Ryan said. “There’s a lot of landlords who, unfortunately, don’t put a lot of money back into their properties.”

Laudani said he was unaware of UB’s off-campus services during his time at UB. He said he and his roommates had limited choices of where to rent from, as they were only attending UB for the fall semester and needed to sublease. He said a friend who eventually did not end up rooming with them found the Stockbridge Avenue apart-ment online.

“That was literally the only thing we found,” Laudani said. “We had no oth-er choice. Otherwise we probably wouldn’t have been there.”

Sarale Management did not respond to inquiries made by The Spectrum. The voice-mail inbox was also full – a problem Lauda-ni said he ran into regularly.

A housing website run by Student Board I (SBI) does not require the same restric-tions for properties as the Off-campus Stu-dent Services website, but does label prop-erties that do not have a certificate of occu-pancy. Student Association President James Ingram said there are currently discussions about improving the website.

Ingram said Ryan’s site has fewer listings than SBI’s because some landlords do not want to pay the certificate of occupancy, which costs $75 and may lead to expensive repairs.

When SBI discovers a house on its site is not up to code, SBI requires the landlord to send a picture of the fixed problem, such as a replaced smoke detector. Ingram has proposed banning a property from the site until it has a certificate of occupancy if it is discovered it is not up to code because landlords could possibly be taking a photo of a different property.

Ryan said students should always visit the apartment before signing the lease. He said some, like international students, are unable to do so because they are out of town when apartments are being snatched up. But even visiting the house does not always guaran-tee it will be in good condition once a stu-dent moves in, according to Ryan.

Apartments can sometimes be damaged between the time a student signs a lease and actually moves in. Ryan said some students sign their lease in March and do not move in until Aug. 15, and “what happens between March and Aug. 15 can be significant.”

Laudani said the issues he and his room-mates saw in the apartment when they first visited not only made the apartment un-clean, they also made it “unsafe.” Lauda-ni said the landlord who showed them the home assured them it would be fixed by the time they moved in.

Laudani said it took a visit to the Sarale Management office by his parents for the company to send its maintenance man out to the home, and that the issues were not completely fixed until October.

Ryan said landlords often assure their tenants the problems will be fixed by the time they move in to get them to sign the lease.

“You may look at an apartment in March, and the landlord says, ‘Oh I’ll have that fixed, I’ll have that fixed.’ You show up in August, and it’s not fixed yet,” Ryan said.

Laudani and his roommates took pho-tos of the damage. Ryan said students should always do this so the landlords can-not blame students for damage that preced-ed them as a way to withhold their securi-ty deposits.

“If you can demonstrate this problem preceded you, it’s going to be very difficult for the landlord to hold you accountable,” Ryan said.

Even so, Laudani and his roommates had difficulty getting their $1,025 security de-posit back.

Their landlord told them that as long as they gave 15 days of notice of their leave and left the house in good shape, they would receive the whole deposit back with-in 30 days, which would have been Feb. 1, according to Laudani.

Laudani provided The Spectrum with text messages to his landlord inquiring about the security deposit. On Feb. 17, the land-lord texted saying the check was in the mail, but Laudani had still not received it by the time he and his mother drove from Long Island to Sarale Management’s office on Feb. 26.

“We said, ‘We’re not leaving until you give us our security deposit,’” Laudani said. “He was just like screwing around on his com-puter, mingling, and we’re like, ‘We’re not leaving.’ He eventually just called a bunch of people and they gave us our money.”

Students face issues with absentee landlords, security deposits when

renting off campus

Living off campus

can mean uncertainty for students

LOUIS MAK, THE SPECTRUM

The Winspear Avenue entrance to UB South Campus in the University Heights. Many stu-dents who live off campus - including in the Heights - experience issues with landlords.

LOUIS MAK, THE SPECTRUM

Many students have had issues dealing with their off-campus apartments and landlords, particu-larly in the University Heights (pictured) located near South Campus.


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Ryan encourages students having issues getting their security deposits back to con-tact SBI legal services that can provide free legal council. He said matters dealing with security deposits would most likely be dealt with in a small claims court.

Laudani and one of his roommates are currently still owed a total of $525 because both paid an additional month’s rent. They said they paid the extra money because they received “insistent emails” from Sarale Man-agement claiming that they did not pay the month of December, but this was a mistake, as Laudani and his roommates had already paid the last month’s rent at the start of the lease.

According to the text messages given to The Spectrum, Sarale Management told Lau-dani they sent him a check of $525 in the mail on March 17, but Laudani says he has yet to receive it. The landlord said, “‘Stop

calling me The check is on the way.’” Lauda-ni said he is willing to take the company to court despite lawyer fees.

“We would rather them be out of money and us break even than us be down $525 and them get away with it. It’s been that frustrat-ing,” he said. “I wouldn’t want anyone to have to deal with this.”

Laudani now calls not researching his for-mer landlords “a mistake,” and said he wish-es he had known of UB’s off-campus hous-ing site.

Ryan said knowing information before signing a lease is key, especially because he has seen students deal with conditions such as bed bugs, faulty electricity, doors and win-dows that do not lock and landlords who don’t return security deposits.

“The list is long, but, unfortunately, the responsiveness of landlords is often very spotty,” Ryan said.


DANI GUGLIELMO STAFF WRITER

Kavitah Singh, a freshman undecided major, paid her housing deposit in the be-ginning of March but was given a reser-vation number in the 1,800s. This hous-ing number means she will be placed in Fargo Hall in Ellicott Hall instead of her first choice, Greiner Hall, for on-campus housing next year.

Some schools let students pick their rooms based on when they submit their deposit, but not UB. As an attempt to avoid a lack of housing and to assign on-campus housing to students, UB Campus Living has created a lottery system that randomly assigns students reservation numbers based on how many semesters they’ve spent living on campus.

But not all students understand the lot-tery system.

The university currently has 19,829 undergraduate students and more than 7,000 students who choose to live in res-idence halls and campus apartments, ac-cording to Michael Koziej, senior asso-ciate director of Campus Living. Each year, there are a few students who are as-signed as an “overcapacity resident.”

Space in the residents halls fill up quickly, which leads to some students be-ing put in overcapacity rooms.

“For this program, we pre-identify a handful of rooms throughout our three areas – Main Street, Governors and Elli-cott,” Koziej said. “We offer [the rooms] up as an option for incoming students.”

Once more space opens up and a room becomes available, the overcapacity resi-dent is required to move to a new room as a permanent space for him or her.

Overcapacity rooms are not available

for selection by current or returning stu-dents but incoming students will have the option to request to be permanent resi-dents in these rooms.

Students who want to live on campus have to sign up online and submit a $300 deposit between the beginning of Janu-ary and the beginning of February. After the submittal deadline has passed, reser-vation numbers are sent to students’ UB email addresses.

Alexandra Furtzaig, a freshman unde-cided major, requested to live in Grein-er Hall for her sophomore year in the be-ginning of January.

“I think most freshman students who want to live on campus in the fall re-quested to live in Greiner” said Furtzaig. “It’s the newest dorm at UB which makes it popular and competitive.”

Greiner Hall was built in 2011 and fea-tures sophomore-only suite-style housing and an environmentally-conscious de-sign.

But Furtzaig’s reservation number wasn’t high enough and she wasn’t cho-sen to live in Greiner.

Students’ “lottery numbers” are deter-mined by how many semesters students have lived on campus. The more semes-ters you have spent living on campus, the lower your number will be and the better chance you have of getting selected for the dorm you requested.

SUNY schools don’t all have the same policy for housing selection. At SUNY College at Geneseo, students’ pooled credits – the combined credits of room-

mates – affect how early they can choose their housing.

“I think pooling credits for preferred housing is reasonably fair,” said Patrick McCormick, a senior political science major at Geneseo. “Having an opportu-nity to choose housing is great, but at the end of the day as long as you can reason-ably request your roommates after fresh-man year, the rest is just details.”

At UB, involvement in a program, ma-jor, GPA and roommate request do not have any effect on which number stu-dents receive.

“Each year, I hear many rumors about students who got their numbers reduced because of some external factor,” Koziej said. “I can assure you this is not true.”

Jake Gordils, a freshman business ma-jor, requested to live in Greiner in Feb-ruary on the second day of the Greiner housing selection.

“I liked the process because I was giv-en a low lottery number,” said Gordils. “I was able to select my room earlier than the people who had higher numbers.”

Singh thinks the lottery process is fair

because the lottery numbers are random regardless of GPA or when you pay your housing deposit.

Rooms get selected until early March. Gordils thought the process for select-

ing a room was very easy and nicely or-ganized.

“I liked how each student had a spe-cific time of the day to log on to the UB housing website and select a room,” Gordils said.

Furtzaig thinks the lottery process is fair but also thinks that students who didn’t get their first choice the year be-fore should have some sort of preference over the other students who did get their first choice.

“I had a low lottery number so I was able to select my other three roommates for sophomore year,” Gordils said.

People who had higher lottery num-bers tended to find people with low lot-tery numbers to room with.

Students with the earlier reservation are allowed to “pull-in” roommates with a later reservation during their assigned slots, according to the Campus Living website. This takes place during the reg-ular selection process for current UB stu-dents. New incoming students must fill out a “pull-in request” form.


Students share their experience with UB’s

dorm lottery

The luck of

the draw

EMILY LI, THE SPECTRUM

Over 7,000 students live in residence halls, like Ellicott (pictured), and campus apartments on North and South Campuses. To make hous-ing selection simpler, UB housing has created a random lottery selection that some students are confused about.


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BRIAN WINDSCHITLARTS EDITOR

UB’s first ever “Electric Tundra,” an EDM fest, is slated for March 13.

“Electric Tundra” will be headlined by Bingo Players, comprised of Dutch art-ist Maarten Hoogstraten, and will feature 3LAU and DNNYD.

The Student Association has split up the Spring Fest budget to support two sepa-rate concerts with different genres instead of one Spring Fest concert. Spring Fest will be on May 2 and feature an alternative rock group. The EDM show will take over the inside of Alumni Arena, which houses roughly 6,000 people.

SA’s goal this year was to cover as many genres as they could, according to SA Pres-ident James Ingram. In an interview right before spring break Ingram told The Spec-trum that’s why SA surveyed students in the fall about genre selection.

There will be 1,500 tickets set aside for the general public for $30; students will be able to get concert admission with a valid student ID on a first come, first serve basis the night of the show. The concert is fund-ed through SA, paid by students’ manda-tory student activity fee. This year, that fee was $94.75 each semester, but it will be $10 higher starting in the fall.

“We were looking at our budget and thought we could put together a good EDM show and have money left to put to-gether a good Spring Fest concert,” Ingram said. “I wanted to make sure we switched up the genres a little.”

The cost of talent for the EDM show is just under $90,000, Ingram said. SA is still finalizing production costs of the concert, but Ingram said he thinks inside Alumni is the best place on campus for EDM shows, which are known for elaborate light setups.

Ingram said SA made it a mission this year to provide a variety of genres to stu-dents – that’s why SA made a survey in the fall.

In a poll of 1,119 students, 414 students

voted they wanted an EDM show. Oth-er popular genres included pop with 406 votes, hip-hop with 399 and rock with 396.

Brandon Alexander, a junior communica-tion and digital media study major, supports the new format completely.

“It was definitely a great idea to split the two shows, especially after how many peo-ple were unhappy with the country concert last spring,” Alexander said. “This lets peo-ple who aren’t a fan of some genres go to a concert without having other genres shoved down their throat.”

Ingram said this support is why the change was made for the spring concerts.

“I’m glad we were able to bring in a genre that students had a say in and that students should be excited about,” he said. “Bingo Players and 3LAU are great EDM acts and are going to bring a good show to Buffalo.”

Maia Pidsadnick, a junior studying theatre performance, has, admittedly, never heard of the Bingo Players.

But she said she believes the switch to two concerts was a positive one.

“Sometimes students are so busy it is dif-ficult to make it to one concert,” Pidsadnick said. “I think having them separated gives more opportunities for students to go out and have fun.”

Bingo Players, once a duo before the death of Hoogstraten’s partner Paul Baümer in 2013, is currently on a world tour and has performed at New York’s

Electric Zoo. Their songs feature bounc-ing synthesizer and guitar-like riffs, accom-panied with strong, driving beats. They went from the house scene when they start-ed in 2006 and are now an EDM giant with songs like “Nothing to say,” “Get up (Rat-tle), “Cry (Just a little) and “Mode.”

3LAU, the stage name for artist Justin Blau, has also performed at Electric Zoo and released the track “Viking” last year on Dim Mak Records. DNNYD, an up-and-comer in the EDM scene, released his track “Get the Party Going” this year.

Ingram said he is aware of the potential risks of hosting “Electric Tundra.” He rec-ognizes the negative connotations associ-ated with the EDM scene, which is often linked to drug abuse, particularly to the syn-thetic psychoactive drug MDMA (ecstasy).

“It’s a valid concern,” Ingram said. “It came to mind for me because you do, al-most semi-regularly, see these horror stories of a large group of young people, students, ending up in the hospital because they’ve all taken a bad batch of some sort of drug.”

Fifteen people have died at music festi-vals around the world, according to a 2014 Billboard article.

But in 2013, when there were seven drug-related deaths at music festivals, the major-ity of deaths were accidental, according to Billboard.

Coleman Thomas, a junior political sci-ence major, said these drug concerns are le-gitimate, but he said UB should be able to handle any problems that come up.

Ingram said he talked to Student Life about these concerns and is working to en-sure campus security is aware of the poten-tial danger of drug use.

The most common cause of MDMA-re-lated medical emergencies is heatstroke, ac-cording to DanceSafe, an organization that helps “young people in the electronic music community stay safe,” according to its web-site.

Thomas Tiberi, director of Student Life, said Student Life will be taking all precau-tions necessary to protect the students, in-cluding safety stations, police patrols and pre-concert security screens.

For Thomas, the potential dangers of the concert are outweighed by the excitement he feels.

“The student body was left hoping for something new and different for this year,” Thomas said. “As long as UB’s primary goal with these events is for the students to safe-ly have a good time, and this goal is kept in mind by concert-goers and concert-hosters alike, the show will be a success.”

Sara DiNatale contributed reporting to this story.


Student Association holds first ‘Electric

Tundra’ in addition to Spring Fest

Dual spring concert series finds

support among student body

In order to diversify the type of music performances presented at UB, the Student Association is having an EDM show as a concert separate from Spring-fest, which will feature an alternative rock concert.

COURTESY OF BINGO PLAYERS OFFICIAL WEBSITE

TORI ROSEMANSENIOR ARTS EDITOR

As cliché as it may sound, a house isn’t always a home. Dorm rooms don’t com-pare to the comfort of your bed back home and apartment-living provides a freedom you can’t quite find living with your parents. There are different types of houses – the literal place you live, and the home you make by surrounding yourself with company you enjoy. In the spirit of this idea, here’s a playlist that covers two different houses – House music, and songs that reflect what makes a house a home. “Burning down the house” –The Used

The post-hardcore band created this track for the Transformers: Revenge of the Fall-en soundtrack. The song is quieter than their other tracks from Lies for the Liars, like “Pretty Handsome Awkward.” It also has less emotional depth, compared to tracks like “The Bird and the Worm” or “The Taste of Ink.” Their heavy guitar and alter-native metal feel remains, making this song different in nature but similar in sound. “Brick House” – The Commodores

If you didn’t dance to this song at every wedding or Bat-mitzvah you’ve ever been to, then you probably didn’t have a child-hood. This funky tune from the late ’70s has a beat you can groove to and lyrics you can move to. The tune is about a powerful woman with a big body that she’s proud of – she’s the figurative house. The saxo-phone that accents the choppy beat is the song’s signature, making it recognizable from miles away. “White Houses” – Vanessa Carlton

The quirky tune about being young and keeping secrets holds true to the playlist’s theme of houses. The singer-songwriter talks about hanging out in the summer and the secrets that are kept within the walls of the houses they stay in. The almost stereo-typical tale of teenage love is seen with her lyrics “He’s so funny in his bright red shirt / We were all in love and we all got hurt.” “White Houses” will make you long for summer even more than usual.

Music to listen to in the comfort of your home,

apartment or dorm

Bringing down the house

For more house related music, finish reading online or listen to The Spectrum’s spotify playlist.


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JASHONDA WILLIAMSSTAFF WRITER

When Jason Okrasinski, Evan Dancer and Tim Jones attended the University of Michi-gan, they struggled to find off-campus hous-ing and had bad experiences with landlords.

“We all saw how difficult it was to find housing. We went through that process our-selves,” Okrasinski said. “We thought there had to be a better way to do this.”

An entrepreneurship class project would eventually lead them to creating a website they say makes finding off-campus hous-ing simple. More than 400 UB students have viewed to find housing, according to the site’s management team.

Cribspot, a website where students and landlords can post off-campus housing list-ings, is currently used at 175 schools across the country and was recently launched at UB. Students can post their apartments for free with their buffalo.edu accounts. The website states it “brings together thousands of stu-dent apartments and houses on one simple, searchable map, so you can stop going from door to door or site to site.”

The founders of site recently graduated from Michigan together and launched the site in 2013. Okrasinski studied business, while both Dancer and Jones studied com-puter science.

The three friends and roommates gathered information about off-campus housing from around the University of Michigan campus, put the information into an excel sheet and then transferred the information onto a web-site for a class project.

What at first looked like just a bunch of dots on a map eventually got attention from the trio’s peers and students at other univer-sities. To the start-up group’s surprise, their friends told them they wished there was something like that at their own schools. They then began to crowd fund to launch the model at different schools.

Dan Ryan, director of Off-Campus Stu-

dent Services, said the site is similar to Craig-slist and apartments.com. Ryan said it’s not hard for students to find apartments. It’s hard to find a “quality apartment.” He said there are lots of sites to find apartment list-ings, but warned the apartments may not be up to code.

UB’s off-campus housing site only posts apartments that have been inspected within the past 36 months. Ryan said students are often taken advantage of when landlords don’t want to give back security deposits or fix things in the home. He said he has seen students with only one exit in the house, liv-ing in the basement, without locks on doors and windows, as well as bed bug and cock-roach infestations.

Ryan said both UB’s site and Cribspot lack postings for homes in the University Heights. He said the reason his site does not have many is because University Heights landlords are sometimes not comfortable with the in-spectors coming into their apartments.

“Sites that take money are looking out for the landlords,” Ryan said. “It makes more sense for students to use our site.”

The Cribspot owners said it doesn’t cost much to run the website and they currently make no money from it. The founders don’t want to charge students, so they said they are trying to figure out how to profit from the site without charging.

“We want to be like Reddit and Wikipedia, where everything is crowd sourced,” Okra-sinski said.

Okrasinski said the website is currently be-ing run by five people fulltime in one house. He said he doesn’t even have a bedroom.

“We all want to make this work, and we don’t have a lot of funding, but it’s eye-open-ing to go from something that was just a

class project to something lots of people are using,” Okrasinski said.

Okrasinski said he, Dancer and Jones had “tons of fights” in the beginning stages of Cribspot and still continue to disagree. He said they are passionate about the site and stubborn about their opinions because they care about what they are working on. He said the disagreements have made them stronger friends and better working partners.

“We know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and play off that,” Okrasinski said.

The site hires students at different univer-sities to market the site. A growth team deals with everything having to do with the web-site, which includes the marketing, site analy-sis and coming up with new ideas to improve the site. There are also open positions avail-

able as an engineer, social media expert, de-signer and growth hacker.

The founders are currently working on a feature in which students can pay their land-lords through the site. A beta focus group has been testing out this feature at the Uni-versity of Michigan for the past eight months and the website is working on moving this feature to other schools.

The founders said the most rewarding part is knowing that they are making some stu-dents’ lives easier.

“When someone says, ‘Thank you, this is awesome,’ it’s the most rewarding part of it,” Okrasinski said. “That’s what keeps us going when things get hard, knowing that people are using it.”


Cribspot website provides students off-

campus housing listings

UB cribs

COURTESY OF CRIBSPOT

Cribspot co-founder Orkrasinski works in the website’s Michigan-based home. Orkrasinski and his friends from college developed Cribspot to help students find off-campus housing.

COURTESY OF CRIBSPOT

Cribspot co-founder Evan Dancer works at the website’s Michigan-based home. (below)


SAMANTHA BRENNERSTAFF WRITER

Samantha Gotlin didn’t come to college her freshman year expecting her roommate to pour beer on her best friend at a party.

But it happened. And she got a bottle of beer poured on her as well.

When students live with one, two or three strangers, problems may arise – some more difficult to manage than others.

But, according to the UB housing website, students who live in the dorms get to know more people with different backgrounds and are more “satisfied with their college experi-ence.” Although the random assignments are efficient for Campus Living, it becomes a hit or a miss for students who have no choice but to live with a stranger.

There used to be a questionnaire students could fill out to get matched with someone similar to himself or herself, but UB no lon-ger uses that method.

“We have found that we cannot be 100 percent certain that it is the student filling out the questionnaire,” Koziej said. “We were finding more and more that parents are in-volved in every aspect of a student’s colle-giate experience.”

In a lot of the cases, parents were filling out the students’ preference questionnaires, saying their child was an early sleeper, they like to study and don’t drink, although it turned out to be untrue, according to Kozieg.

If students do not put in a roommate re-quest, then housing looks at the date their application was submitted. Students are then matched based on the room type requested and when their application was received.

Gotlin, a junior accounting major, was matched with a ‘roommate from hell.’

Gotlin, “unfortunately,” found her room-mate on Facebook through mutual friends, she said.

As a freshman she was assigned to live in a quad in Richmond. She found all of her roommates on Facebook and met two of the

three before she moved in. “We heard rumors that she was a coke ad-

dict,” Gotlin said. “She was always sneaky, she was slimy, secretive and had a lockbox she wouldn’t give us the code to.”

Gotlin and her two other roommates tried to get over the type of person she was and just be friends with her, but that didn’t work out too well.

“She was a sociopath, we f****** hated her,” Gotlin said.

At a party, ‘the roommate from hell’ poured a drink on Gotlin’s best friend, which she claimed was an accident.

“I yelled at her, she got mad that I yelled at her, so she got a beer and poured it on me,” Gotlin said.

Gotlin, the beer spiller and two other girls got into a physical altercation before some-one broke it up.

That night, Gotlin decided not to sleep in her room. When she returned the next morn-

ing, her other two roommates wouldn’t speak to her because they thought Gotlin jumped their unwanted roommate.

“[She] made up a story that I punched her for no reason and it came out of nowhere,” Gotlin said. “So we got into a fight in the room and we were screaming at each other about what really happened.”

That night Gotlin went out, but the “so-ciopath” stayed home. When Gotlin got back to the room she realized she forgot her key. She was banging on the door for two hours and there was no answer.

“The RA finally came and opened the door and she was up, sitting on her bed,” Gotlin said.

Gotlin and her friend locked the unwel-come roommate out the next morning and she called the police. There was an “awkward tension” in the room and they didn’t speak for two weeks.

Then, one morning before Thanksgiving,

the ostracized roommate’s dad walked into their room, packed up her stuff and left.

Gotlin hasn’t seen her since. “We do not necessarily match roommates

per se,” said Michael Koziej, senior associate director of Campus Living. “We allow stu-dents to select a roommate request. If that request is mutual, the request is honored.”

At SUNY College at Geneseo, students fill out questionnaires about their roommate preferences before moving in.

“I think that the roommate survey did a good job of matching people with similar liv-ing habits,” said Alexa Rubenstein, a former Geneseo student.

There are two processes within the hous-ing system for roommate assignment at UB: the new student process and the returning student process.

Once a new student submits his or her housing deposit, he or she is able to enter room and roommate preferences, according to the UB housing website.

For the returning roommate process, cur-rent students have the first right to select a room with as many roommates as they like and with whomever they’d like.

“If returning students are going into a sit-uation without roommates, they can select an open room that has an open space,” Koziej said.

Rachel Bernzweig, a senior legal studies major, was one of those lucky students that had a positive random roommate experience her freshman year at UB.

“I couldn’t really find anyone to live with, so I just crossed my fingers and hoped for the best,” Bernzweig said.

She was assigned to live in Richmond with a UB tennis player from Spain.

“I walked in and the moment she saw me she was hugging me and acting like we had been friends for years,” Bernzweig said.

Some students develop positive relation-ships with their random roommates, like Bernzweigh, but besides requesting a room-mate ahead of time, Campus Housing hasn’t found a better way to match students.

But Gotlin said there is always something to learn from random living assignments.

“I would not have the personal experience of learning to manage uncomfortable, sticky situations if it weren’t for my scenario my freshman year,” Gotlin said.


Living with a randomly assigned roommate from

heaven (or hell)

Dorming with the ‘devil’

Rachel Bernzweig (right) and Laura Fernandez Argenta (middle) are two UB students who were satisfied with their random roommate assignment their freshman year.

COURTESY OF RACHEL BERNZWEIG

...or angel


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One night, I drove home from my friend’s house. For no particular reason, I was in a good mood. I thought of my cousin Thomas and decided that when he was back in New York I should go out to dinner with him sometime. I smiled at the idea. Though I had talked with him on the phone a few times that year, I hadn’t actually seen him in per-son in a while. It would be nice to real-ly reconnect with him sometime soon.

Two days later, Thomas died.If a death is truly a tragedy, the word

‘tragedy’ is an understatement. There are no words to describe a tragic death. Poets try, authors try, everybody tries. I won’t try.

A life isn’t defined by its ending. A life is defined by how it was lived and what difference it made. My cousin’s life was defined by a playful outlook and a free spirit, wrapped in the loving embrace of family.

The tragedy of death is for the living to deal with. When such a close mem-ber of your family passes away, you learn a lot.

He passed away two days before spring break ended last year. I decided to go back to Buffalo for three days be-fore returning to Long Island for the wake.

Just one friend in Buffalo actual-ly talked with me about what I was go-ing through. She had been distant from me, but when tragedy hit, she was there in an instant. Meanwhile, the people I talked to every day couldn’t be both-ered to talk to me about what I was go-ing through.

My sister had friends drive down to Long Island from Boston and fly in from Syracuse to be there for her. It’s in

the darkest times that you learn who your friends really are.

Being in Buffalo was a surreal expe-rience. I went from class to class feel-ing completely disconnected from real-ity. It was as if nothing was wrong and yet everything was. Being in Buffalo felt wrong, like I had abandoned my family.

When I finally returned home for the wake, I felt a bit better only because I could help my family. I grieve through service. I need to be useful. I didn’t cry in front of anyone because I didn’t want to add any weight to the already unimaginable tons everyone was feel-ing.

Everyone else cried as expected. For whatever reason, I just couldn’t cry in front of them. I grieved privately, through poems, writing and prayer, but mostly poetry. I wrote about fifteen po-ems during that week. Two or three ac-tually about what was happening, the rest just idle thoughts. The mind knows what it wants. Everyone grieves differ-ently.

During the second day of the wake, my roommate texted me to tell me he decided he wouldn’t be rooming with me next year. This was the epitome of how my friends from school treated the situation. There were no support-ing texts of concern, only one text of abandonment.

What I did have was the support and love of my family. All of us were there for each other. We laughed and cried together. We hugged and talked togeth-er. It’s a silver lining to the darkest of times. Death brings the living together. Humanity’s protest against the darkness is finding light and love in these times.

When the funeral came, I finally broke down and cried. The funeral is the final part of someone’s life. This was it. This was the last of my cousin’s time on Earth. We were laying him to rest forever. This was the end, or so I felt at the time.

Our family started following the mot-to ‘Live for Thomas.’

There’s nothing you can say to a grieving parent or sibling, but there’s so much you can do. Show love and care. If a friend loses a close relative, be there as much as you can.

A year has passed since my cousin’s passing and my family couldn’t be clos-er. My aunt and uncle, Thomas’ parents, come over regularly to watch a movie, to talk and to laugh. All of my cousins post photos of Thomas on Facebook, at least three a week. At every family gathering, we talk about Thomas and laugh about Thomas.

He is still very much alive and with us and he always will be as long as we remember him. We all live for Thomas now and as long as we do that, he will never truly be gone.


A student’s reflection on

coping with death

Live for Thomas

COURTESY OF JACKIE MCKEON

Over the summer, my cousins and I made a chalk mural in honor of Thomas at the Riverhead Arts Festival.

VILLAGE

ALEXANDER PENNINGTONSTAFF WRITER

Six months ago, Kendrick Lamar dropped his single “I” and puzzled his fans with his departure from the sound they’d come to know on good kid, m.A.A.d city. Following in the footsteps of Beyoncé and J. Cole, To Pimp a Butterfly dropped with short no-tice on March 16. The 16-track album features nostalgic west-coast rap mixed with funk, laid-back jazz and early-2000s neo-soul. The in-strumentals start, stop and change sudden-ly, while Kendrick takes the listener through the trials and tribulations that come with success. In his single “Blacker the Berry,” Lamar ad-dressed social issues like police brutality and black-on-black violence. This track showed Lamar re-turning to the subjects he talked about on his 2011 release Section 80. The song is also a great con-trast to I, because it features a darker atmosphere and mood. This juxtaposition helped build the al-ready enormous buzz around Lamar’s album. On the album’s first song, “Wesley’s Theory,” La-mar uses ’70s funk legend, George Clinton and multi-genre bass guitarist, Thundercat to kick off the album. With a mix of rap and funk that goes back to the days of rappers like Ice cube, Dj Quik and Snoop Dogg, G-funk is a subgenre of Cali-fornia gangsta rap that emerged in the early ’90s.

THE AFTERMATH OF SUCCESSKendrick Lamar discusses social issues on his new album

Album: To Pimp a Butterfly Release Date: March 16 Label: Top Dawg Entertainment Grade: A +

SEE BUTTERFLY, PAGE 14

COURTESY OF ROLLING STONE


SUSHMITA GELDACONTRIBUTING WRITER

Gail Seigel remembers when her scientif-ic curiosity first took hold of her. She was walking to kindergarten and saw a coin in the dirt. She moved the coin to the middle of the sidewalk, wondering if it would be there the next day.

Now, as a principal investigator at UB’s Center for Hearing and Deafness, Seigel reflects on that experiment as the first of many adventures in her scientific career.

“Of course [the coin] was gone,” she said. “But I learned something.”

Seigel traces her scientific adventures – which range from having her hair pulled out at a zoo to surviving qualifying exams in graduate school to shipping retinal cells across the world – in her memoir, Academa-nia: My Life in the Trenches of Biomedical Re-search. Her memoir was released on Jan. 15 and is available only as an e-book.

Seigel said in her book she aimed to strike a balance between sharing entertain-ing anecdotes and scientific prose. The les-sons in her book – such as how to deal with bad news, develop resilience and ne-gotiate – are relevant to students and pro-fessionals across all disciplines, she said.Perseverance

Seigel currently researches retinoblas-toma, a cancer that originates in the ret-ina and affects children under the age of 2. Children with retinoblastoma appear to have white pupils in photographs, she said. Treating the cancer often renders the pa-tient blind.

Last year, Seigel began working with stem cells, which were – unlike other cells she has worked with – extremely uncoop-erative.

“They’ve been giving me fits,” she said. “If you look at them the wrong way, they die.”

She said research is not for students who expect instant gratification and advises as-piring researchers to speak with people in

the field and keep an open mind. “See what it’s like,” she said. “It’s not for

everybody … if you see [failure] as a set-back or get uptight about it, you won’t last in the field.”

Richard Salvi, director of UB’s Center for Hearing and Deafness, agrees with Sei-gel and said one of the most common mis-conceptions students have about science is experiments will routinely produce exciting results.

“On television, you see the crimes are solved, the scientific discoveries are made in a week,” he said. “Most of the time, a month is about the time you need to bare-ly get started.”

It takes years – and sometimes decades – to complete a research project, and it’s im-portant to develop resilience and keep the long-term goal in mind, Salvi said.Funding

Like the majority of researchers, Seigel relies on grants to fund all components of her research – including her salary.

Universities provide start-up money for laboratories but do not provide much fi-nancial support afterward, according to Salvi. He compared being a researcher to running a small business inside a university.

Seigel typically receives one of the 10 grants she applies for each year and earns

approximately $50,000 per year in grants.

“Basically we have to do what we can afford to do,” she said. “You watch your salary go up and down.”

The ability to com-municate clearly and ef-fectively is essential to receiving grants, and

writing is both the first and second most im-portant skill in science, according to Salvi.

Seigel initially planned to write a memoir when she retired but found that, once she started writing, she couldn’t stop.

She also supplemented her income for six years by working for a biotechnology company in Rochester, New York. Work-ing in industry, however, didn’t offer her much freedom and flexibility, Seigel said.

“At the company, from the top, they tell you what to do,” she said. “When you run your own lab, you’re the one who decides.”Keeping an open mind

Salvi, like Seigel, likes the discovery-geared nature of research. As an adminis-trator, he enjoys helping students complete their first grant proposals and publish their first papers. Above all, he enjoys reading articles and knowing there are always unan-swered questions.

Salvi encourages students to study texts outside their discipline because, often times, those texts may influence their work.

“Never be complacent,” he said. “You never know enough.”

Likewise, Seigel advises aspiring re-searchers to keep an open mind and re-member that science can be taken in many directions. In high school she knew she

wanted to run her own lab, but she didn’t imagine herself being an author, assisting in the analysis of a murder case or working in biotechnology.

“You think there’s a straight line between where you are and where you want to be,” she said. “But it’s never straight.”Impact

Seigel advertised her book on her Face-book page, “Academania, the book” and through her Twitter account. She doesn’t plan on publishing a physical version unless it goes viral.

So far, her e-book, which is available on Amazon.com for $3.99, has reached ap-proximately 60 readers. Among them is Robert Barbuto, a retired criminal defense lawyer in Georgia.

Barbuto suffers from diabetic retinopa-thy – a condition that renders him nearly blind. He said Seigel’s Twitter handle – @eyedoc333 – and the title of her memoir intrigued him.

After enlarging the font and inverting the colors on the page, Barbuto was able to read Seigel’s memoir. He praised Academa-nia for its easy readability and balanced ap-proach to informing and entertaining.

“It’s not a scientific treatise,” he said. “I came away with a new view on the adven-tures research people go through.”

He said Seigel’s memoir gave him an in-sider viewpoint on the difficulties of earn-ing a Ph.D. and funding research. Barbu-to plans to share his new understanding in a presentation to more than 150 people in his community and urge them to persuade their congressmen to increase financial support for research.

Seigel said students who are interested in impacting the world of research should begin working in a lab early in their under-graduate careers. It’s important to get a feel of the research world before diving into it, she said.

Salvi also said students should find a mentor – someone who is passionate about research and who can guide them at the be-ginning of their journey.

“Find someone that wants to get some-thing done and is in a big hurry to do it,” he said. “That’s the person you want to work with … both of you together are go-ing to move forward.”

Seigel has developed research skills well beyond the ones used in her first coin ex-periment as a child. She said she is eager to pass those lessons on to students who are interested in gaining an insider perspective on the challenges and rewards of pursuing a research career.


UB researcher publishes memoir, shares her journey as a biomedical researcher

So you want to be a researcher?

Gail Seigel cur-

rently researches

retinoblastoma, a

rare cancer that

originates in the

retina. She de-

tails her journey

through biomedi-

cal research in her

memoir, Academa-nia: My Life in the Trenches of Bio-medical Research.

COURTESY OF GAIL SEIGEL


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After graduating from Kenmore

West Senior High School, Jeneen Terrana could follow her passion for music or for baking. But in-stead of choosing, she used one to fund the other.

“I don’t think I could ever give up music for baking, even though I love to do it,” Terrana said.

She baked and sold cakes to make money to afford studio time to pro-duce her first album, Just Me.

Terrana is a singer-songwriter with a pop-folk sound who now lives in New York City. She infuses hints of rock and blues through-out her albums, including her lat-est See the Light. Her sound is a cross between Ingrid Michaelson and Lana Del Ray.

But her success didn’t come straight out of high school.

She decided to spend a year at UB, studying classical music and opera. But she soon realized edu-cation wouldn’t further her career the way moving to New York City would.

“I heard a lot of horror stories about New York before I went,” Terrana said. “My parents were worried about me moving there, but I knew I had to if I wanted a chance at making it big.”

It took two years for Terrana to fully adjust to New York City, where her biggest concern was her safety. She had to learn to walk with a purpose and stay safe in the big city, she said. But she was in a city bursting with opportunity, which she used to create her first

album. There were a ton of ven-ues, theaters and open mics for her to perform at and dance classes she could take.

She moved thousands of miles from her home and family to pur-sue a career in an unpredictable field.

Terrana’s music is her method of self-expression, where she dis-cusses her emotions. At first, some of her lyrics were fictional and had nothing to do with her experiences. It wasn’t until she dealt with break-ups that she learned to channel her emotions and the stories in her songs became more realistic.

With a few years of musical ex-perience behind her, Terrana said she’s accomplished more than she would have if she had remained in Buffalo.

The artist has toured Europe with her friend who plays pi-ano, performing at small ven-ues throughout various countries. She’s played in countless listen-ing rooms, always looking for new places to demonstrate her ability and have her sound heard.

But Terrana is still a Buffalo girl. Despite her success in the city and the opportunities the Big Apple has afforded her, she comes back to Buffalo each year to perform and visit her family.

“I come back and play three or four shows in Tonawanda, Cheek-towaga and Amherst,” Terrana said. “Buffalo will always be my home – it’s where I grew up and found my love for the music I play now.”


A long way from home

Artist Spotlight: Je-neen Terrana leaves her Buffalo home for

the Big Apple

COURTESY OF OFFICIAL

JENEEN TERRANA BAND PAGE

Singer-songwriter Jeneen Terrana holds onto her Buffalo roots while she focuses on her career in NYC.


When I got a call at the end of June before my freshman year telling me my housing forms were not filled in correctly and I would not be provided dorming, I panicked.

They told me I’d have to com-mute – which was an issue, con-sidering I live on Long Island.

So my dad and I spent the next month feverishly calling all the local housing developments near North and South Campus-es, coming up with little until the end of July. The University Vil-lage at Sweethome gave us a call back, saying they had an opening.

I felt relieved, but little did I realize how living off campus would affect my social life.

Freshman year I lived with two girls from China who barely spoke English and a junior who I happened to know because we were from the same hometown. I lived in a building where doors were always shut and no other freshmen lived. I wasn’t able to just pop into another room or building, rather, I was stuck with the people I lived with or taking the bus to campus.

I would come home from

classes and sit in my room, watching Netflix or reading by myself. I was wary of my room-mates’ cooking, but would oc-casionally pop into the kitch-en with Ilana, who I knew from home, to have dinner.

Weekends were worse. With no busing to and from campus, I was forced to walk to and from Sweethome if I wanted to see anyone on campus or go out. I relied heavily on the people I al-ready knew from home, packing a backpack on Friday and stay-ing in dorms in Governors or Ellicott for the weekend. I knew the bathroom codes in various dorms and became friends with the people who lived near those I stayed with. My best friend from home, Jordan, basically allowed me to live with him every week-end of my first semester.

Once Sunday came around, it was back to reality – I’d walk home, unpack my bag and return to the routine I’d developed for myself.

This situation made it hard for me to make friends on my own. Everyone I knew was ei-ther from home, or friends with someone from home. I made very few friends of my own ac-cord, especially because most of my classes were lecture-sized. I would go out at night a lot, mak-ing fast friends on the Stampede or at parties. But none of these people were going to be my best friends. Rather, they filled the lonely void that was growing as the winter approached.

I felt like I was missing the community atmosphere every-one else seemed to be enjoying. How was I supposed to meet new people with interests similar to mine when I was trapped in an apartment far away from ev-eryone else?

I started to join various clubs and organizations. The Spec-trum was the first, where I used the class as an excuse to stay on campus longer and to meet oth-er people who liked to write. I

joined a few clubs temporari-ly, but didn’t find anything that stuck.

I began to go to the Chabad with my roommate, finding sol-ace in the familiar atmosphere and befriending the people Ilana would introduce me to. We slow-ly grew closer and I felt less of a need to go out every weekend when I could easily spend some time with her.

Once the second semester rolled around, I was used to my situation. Enough of my friends had cars that transportation was less of an issue. I had a small group of friends I could see at any given time. I didn’t mind the apartment now that I was close with Ilana. I adjusted to the situ-ation, and when it came time for people to make plans for sopho-more year, I had a whole group of girls to live with who would move to Sweethome.

Everyone told me freshman year would be the hardest. That the friends I made may not stick, or that I would have more time to go out, or that any experience I had wouldn’t affect the rest of my college experience.

Instead, it taught me the val-ue of having a few close friends rather than a large group. I de-veloped close bonds with a few people instead of creating the group atmosphere, like I had in high school.

I now have this group. I have a set of guy and girlfriends that I hang out with on the weekend and live with. I have friends at The Spectrum and the Chabad. I keep in close touch with a couple friends from home.

Most importantly, I’ve main-tained the relationships I formed my first year. Ilana is graduat-ing this year, and we already talk about how I’m going to vis-it her when she’s in graduate school. Though Jordan trans-ferred home, I still speak to him regularly and see him when I’m home. They’re the people I lean on when I need someone to talk to, because I know no mat-ter where I am, they’ll always be there for me.


How living off campus freshman

year influenced my Buffalo experience

Far from friends


JOSE ESCOBARCONTRIBUTING WRITER

Russ Cripell, director of Outdoor Pur-suits in Student Life, wants UB students to imagine going on a hike with a group of friends when, suddenly, one of the group members slips and falls down a steep slope. When the group arrives to help the mem-ber that fell down the hill they find he is bleeding and unconscious.

Crispell wants to know: What would you do next?

This is the kind of scenario that Crisp-ell believes is possible when participating in one of the many activities hosted by the Office of Outdoor Pursuits in Student Life.

“Knowing that there is an increase in the amount of people going out into the back country, there’s also a need to make sure that when [students] go out, they are in a safe environment,” Crispell said.

UB Outdoor Pursuits is part of Student Life and offers a variety of team building activities, local and foreign travel trips and equipment rentals.

On March 5-8 eight UB students and two faculty members were trained and certified through UB Outdoor Pursuits and Student Life to become wilderness first responders. The classroom training took place in the Student Union with supplemental outdoor training held at Nature View Park, approx-imately 5 miles north of North Campus. It prepared its participants to become knowl-edgeable wilderness leaders.

The wilderness first responder course, which was funded through a grant by the Student Association, is a rigorous 65-hour course designed to prepare those that lead groups in the wilderness. CDS Outdoor Inc., an internationally recognized provid-er of remote, austere and wilderness med-ical training, provided the training that was conducted over 3 days of intensive study and outdoor practice.

At the completion of the course CDS Outdoor Inc. awards each student a certifi-cate. In order to receive a completion certif-icate, students must already hold a current

Advanced Wilderness First Aid certificate (AWFA), meet the course skill objectives, attend all class sessions and pass the writ-ten test with a score of 80 percent or bet-ter. The certification is then valid for a peri-od of three years.

Students receive intensive training in first aid approach, anatomy and physiology, pa-tient assessment, airway management, basic pharmacology, wilderness survival, search and rescue and recognition of medical problems.

Crispell, who already has his AWFA cer-tificate, helped train students last week and will be helping students become wilderness first responders in the future.

“As the programs are growing here in Student Life and for the university, and the demands of people wanting to venture into the wild [increases], so does the importance of providing critical wilderness first aid and first responder experience [for our] trip leaders,” Crispell said.

Scenarios like the one Crispell described are what led Outdoor Pursuits to seek the training for his students. He felt that the training was necessary for his trip lead-ers given the increase in the demand of his program since his office moved from the Athletics Department to Student Life last semester.

UB Outdoor Pursuits has been working with CDS Outdoor Inc., based out of Va-lencia, Pennsylvania, for the past 12 years.

Newly certified trainers will be better prepared to tackle emergency situations

should they ever encounter one during an Outdoor Pursuit event.

Don Szumigala, adjunct instructor in Athletics, feels that the training is even use-ful beyond the wilderness environment.

“A lot of the skills that students will learn are skills that they can use in their daily life,” Szumigala said. “If you’re at home and fall and injure yourself, before you can contact additional care, students will now be able to take care of injuries on their own.”

Kevin Santa, a senior environmental geo-sciences major and president of UB Out-door Adventure Club, attended the training. Santa felt the need to become certified be-cause of his role as a leader in the club and as a trip leader in many of the events host-ed by the Office of Outdoor Pursuits.

“I feel a lot more comfortable going out into the woods and going out with friends,” Santa said. “If something happens I know what to do – it takes a load off my mind knowing what I know now.”

In May, the Office of Outdoor Pursuits is hosting its annual trip to Alaska for the 21st year. The wilderness training will be useful for this trip because students will participate in various activities including backpacking, canoeing, fishing, sea-kayak-ing and camping on the Iditarod Trail.

In the near future, the university commu-nity will also be able to be certified first re-sponders through a class offered by Out-door Pursuits.


UB Outdoor Pursuits will now offer critical first aid training

George Clinton’s appearance on the first track pays homage to the foundation west coast hip-hop was built on. But this wasn’t the only goal of the album.

To Pimp a Butterfly is an explora-tion of Lamar learning about the influ-ence that comes with fame and realiz-ing money can’t get rid of some problems. Sandwiched between songs, Lamar raps “I re-member you were conflicted, misusing your in-fluence / sometimes I did the same.”

This idea is slowly revealed throughout each song and reflects the theme of the album. Instead of promoting misogyny and ma-terialism like a lot of rappers, Lamar uses music in a more conscious and therapeu-tic manner. He uses rap to re-create mo-ments of doubt and depression as a way of dealing with his demons, like in his song “u,” but he quickly tries to reassure his fans and maybe himself in the next song, “Alright.” “I’m at the preacher’s door / my knees get-ting weak and my gun might blow / but we gon’ be alright,” he raps on “Alright.” In “Institutionalized” Lamar talks about still being trapped by his environment, even though he’s made it out. It’s a statement that poverty can create an inescapable state of mind or sit-uation.

Lamar also addresses how his fame has af-fected his friends with lyrics like, “Somebody told me you thinkin’ ‘bout snatchin’ jewelry / I should’ve listened what my grandmamma said to me.”

The stress and pressure of success has Lamar dealing with temptation, which he calls “Lucy” on tracks like “For Sale - Interlude.” Lucy comes to be less of a person and more of an abstract representation of Lamar selling his soul and misusing his influence. By the end of the album, the rapper realizes that he must use his music to inform the world and stop injustices.

A particular spoken word poem that stuck out to me was during the chaotic live perfor-mance of “i” that’s featured on the album. The set is cut short with Lamar screaming about killing cops in the middle of the chorus.

After the chatter dies down, Lamar talks to the crowd about the word, “Negus.” Negus is an Amharic word for king that’s used in plac-es like Ethiopia. To Kendrick, this is where his identity lies – not in the distorted images of black culture, which have misinterpreted the meaning of Negus.

To Pimp a Butterfly mainly documents Lamar’s personal journey, but his social awareness al-lows him to make it universal by building on his cultural history and just by being an in-credibly good rapper. It gives the listener a va-riety of west coast hip-hop, from the jazz rap of “For Free? – Interlude” to the gangsta raps of “Hood Politics,” to the spoken word perfor-mances sprinkled throughout the album.


Continued from butterfly, page 11

Vanessa Dwyer, a sophomore environmental geosciences major; Andrew Harp, a PhD student in geology; Chris Portor of CDS Outdoor Inc.; and Kevin Sauta, a senior environmental geosciences major look on as Mike Mazuitowski and Max Bass, a junior social sciences interdisciplinary major participate in a drill on an Outdoor Pursuits trip in which they evacuate a “victim.”

COURTESY OF DON SZUMIGALA


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CHARLES W SCHAABASST. NEWS EDITOR

Alexandra Mastoras was about 2 feet away from where her ceiling was about to collapse from the buildup of water on the roof of her Sundridge apartment in Amherst. The second-year graduate stu-dent in the school of social work turned around and saw debris all over her floor and belongings.

“I [was] thankful that nobody was hurt,” Mastoras said.

Students both on and off campus – as well as the Buffalo area at large – have dealt with leaking roofs because of the snow and cold weather this winter. Mark Eyrick, the vice president for property management at the Sundridge apartments, said that a vast majority of Western New York homes had leaks this winter because of the severe weather conditions. Buffalo had its 20th-coldest winter recorded this year, according to the National Weather Service.

Eyrick said the problem is not so much the roof of the homes, but rather the gut-ters. Eyrick said the gutters freeze with water, which leaves melting snow on the roof with nowhere to go but underneath the shingles.

“It’s just a problem that was created by the weather conditions this winter,” Ey-rick said.

“There really aren’t many roofs that are exempt from the problem.”

Flint Village apartments on North Campus have had more than 40 apart-ments with leaks this winter, according to Marnie Mancuso, the apartments’ proper-ty manager at UB. Mancuso said the dam-ages never got to the severity of a ceiling collapse, but were isolated to drywall and carpet damage.

“The first leaks were reported in ear-ly March, we notified students and told them it could take a couple weeks until we

could start repairs,” Mancuso said “The ice was so frozen … we couldn’t get on the roof to fix the leaks, the roofing mate-rials wouldn’t adhere, so we had to wait to fix the problem.”

Patrick Woodward, the Flint Village complex director, said there are plans in place when leaks occur, maintenance crews are notified and private contractors work to fix the issues.

More than 75 percent of the affect-ed apartments have been dry walled and more than 50 percent have been paint-ed since the leaks occurred, according to Mancuso. Mancuso said that final repairs will hopefully be finished by the end of this week.

Students living in Flint received emails from Residential Life recommending them to place buckets underneath the leak to prevent any further damage. Jeanette Zalba, the associate director of Residen-tial Life, said that the leaks were unique to Flint because it has a different design than other on-campus apartments.

“It was isolated to Flint because of the architecture of those apartments,” Mancuso said “The angle of the roof is steeper [at Flint]… there was an extreme amount of ice that built up this winter causing the leaks.”

Mastoras experienced the worst of what a leaky ceiling can do at Sundridge. She had reported water damage at her apart-ment starting in August 2014.

“An MJ Peterson representative came to look at the damages and stated it had

been repaired already,” Mastoras said. “I feel neglected by MJ Peterson, my con-cerns went unaddressed and that is unfor-tunate.”

The ceiling damage was not fixed right away and Mastoras was living in a damp cold apartment for a short while. UB Off-Campus Student Services contacted Mas-toras and paid to put her in a hotel for two days, which according to Mastoras was very helpful during midterms.

“We were sleeping on the floor and liv-ing in the living room, it was very kind of [UB] to pay for a hotel for two days.” Mastoras said.

MJ Peterson accommodated Mastoras and her roommate by covering the cost for movers that moved them into Liberty Square apartments, which is also managed by MJ Peterson. Liberty Square is more expensive than Sundridge, but MJ Peter-son agreed to let the tenants pay the same rent that they had been paying at their old apartment.

“I feel like we did everything we could for these residents, both in terms of deal-ing with the issue and accommodating them for other housing,” Eyrick said. “I’m really not sure what else we can do.”

Eyrick said his own home had a leaking roof and that not much can be done ex-cept “remove snow and ice from the roof to minimize the amount of snow and ice that will eventually melt.”


Students on and off campus have experienced

leaks this year

Rough winter causes students

to experience leaky roofs

Alexadra Mastoras’ ceiling gave way on March 3 at her Sundridge apartment off of East Robinson Road in Amherst. Mastoras experienced the worst case of water leaking through the roof and above her ceiling, a problem many Western New Yorkers have dealt with this winter. COURTESY OF ALEXADRA MASTORAS

JORDAN OSCAR SENIOR ARTS EDITOR

After a few weeks in limbo, the fate of UB’s 14th annual Comedy Series was decid-ed Thursday when Williams and her man-agement informed the Student Association that she could appear on April 2. The date worked with the Center for the Arts, the event’s venue, which SA President James In-gram said had to be available at the same time Williams was.

Williams was originally set to perform on March 12 but her performance had to be re-scheduled.

The comedian, well known for her role as a correspondent on The Daily Show is set to perform a “comedic lecture” in the CFA’s Mainstage Theater on Thursday April 2 at 8:00 p.m. Doors open at 7:30 p.m.

“I’m glad it’s working out and, like I said, hopefully students will hear the word and be interested in going because I think it’s going to be a good show,” Ingram said.

Ingram previously told The Spectrum if a date didn’t work out SA would pursue an-other comedian, but that never became an issue. Ingram said they focused on oth-er events, like the sneak preview of Game of Thrones’ fifth season this weekend, and hoped that Williams’ intent on rescheduling would work out.

Ingram said Williams told the SA Tuesday that she would be available on April 2 and they immediately worked to update its flyer and so-cial media with the new date. SA will try to in-form as many students as possible about the Comedy Series and Williams’ appearance in advance of the show, Ingram said.

“Erin [Lachaal], our entertainment direc-tor, came into my office today and said that we could schedule Jessica for April 2 if we wanted to do and it and I said, ‘Yeah, lets go for it,’” Ingram said. “We’ll have to get the marketing push going as soon as possible.”

Williams is set to perform a “comedic lec-ture” entitled, “For More We Turn To Jes-sica Williams,” which will string along seg-ments she has worked on for The Daily Show and her stance on them with jokes and hu-morous anecdotes.

“Everything should be the same except the new date,” Ingram said.

Tickets will be available in the SA’s office located at 350 Student Union starting Friday at 9 a.m. for undergrads with a valid UB ID.


Tickets for Williams’ comedic

lecture available Friday

Jessica Williams rescheduled to April 2


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COLUMBUS, OHIO – There was a moment in Friday’s game when it seemed like everything had fallen into place for the Buffalo men’s basketball team.

Senior forward Xavier Ford, the Mid-American Conference Tourna-ment MVP, hit a 3-point basket to tie the game at 62 for the Bulls – a No. 12 seed making their first-ever NCAA tournament appearance.

Despite succumbing to the pres-sure of the West Virginia full-court press and being down by double-digits for a majority of the after-noon, Buffalo looked like it was go-ing to do what seems to be the com-mon theme in this year’s NCAA Tournament: pull off the upset.

But in the end, it wasn’t enough. The Mountaineers’ Devin Williams was fouled and hit two free throws. MAC Player of the Year Justin Moss was unable to make a poten-tial game-tying layup. Tarik Phillip hit a dagger of a 3-pointer.

The Bulls’ sloppy plays, fouls, poor shooting and turnovers came back to haunt them in the final two minutes. The Mid-Major team wasn’t able to ‘shock the world.’ The best season in Buffalo’s pro-gram history came to an end Friday afternoon with a 68-62 loss.

It’s easy to understand Buffalo’s disappointment.

Head coach Bobby Hurley didn’t seem content with the six-point loss

after shouting intensely and pas-sionately for two hours on the side-line. He said his team had “finished with moral victories” since the loss-es to tournament No. 1 seeds Ken-tucky and Wisconsin.

You could see heartbreak on the normally exuberant Shannon Ev-ans’ face. Ford and Hurley shared a somber embrace with each oth-er for a moment as Ford exited the press conference stage.

Those emotions are normal fol-lowing any loss, especially such a heart-breaking, season-ending one on the biggest stages you could play on. But I think after a few days, the magnitude of what was accom-plished – not only in this game, but in this season –dwill start to sink in.

The Bulls fought back to tie a game they had no business tying. After getting beat up physically in the first half, Buffalo was not intim-idated and started the second half on a 7-0 run.

And this was far from a neutral site. The crowd was overwhelming-ly West Virginia fans, who made it clear right from pregame introduc-tions. I give the comparatively small section of the Buffalo crowd cred-it, though. They made Nationwide Arena sound like Alumni Arena on a few of Buffalo’s runs.

Sure, the Bulls should have disap-pointment in the way they played. There were a lot of bad passes and sloppy play for stretches. They didn’t handle West Virginia’s full-court press defense well at all. The score was tied with two minutes left and they did not get it done.

And Buffalo wasn’t the typical underdog either. Despite its place-ment as the No. 12 seed, there just seemed to be some kind of hype hovering over this team that it was destined to be this season’s dark horse and make noise in the tour-nament. It didn’t happen.

And ultimately, West Virginia showed why it’s a Big 12 school and a No. 5 seed in the NCAA Tourna-ment. And Buffalo still lost by six points in an NCAA tournament game that was tied in the final min-utes.

But how Buffalo did in the NCAA Tournament was never go-ing to define this season. The road

to the tournament will define it. Getting the program’s first confer-ence championship, an appearance on the national stage and possibly a permanent place within the Buf-falo sports community is how this season is going to be remembered.

But only if that success is sus-tained.

The football program seemed to finally break through with a MAC championship in 2008. Two years later, head coach Turner Gill was gone for a bigger program in Kan-sas and the team has had only one winning season since.

That can’t be the case again here with the men’s basketball team.

Keeping Hurley in Buffalo has to be Athletic Director Danny White’s top priority. Whether he does it with a new contract with even more ticket-revenue incentives or just by talking him into it, he has to find a way to keep Hurley on the Buffa-lo sideline for at least a few more seasons.

White has to find a way to keep this going. If Hurley stays, I see no reason why Buffalo can’t be in an NCAA tournament game this time next season. They may be in even better position to win a tournament next year, too.

I think once the initial disap-pointment goes away and Hurley has time to reflect, he can appreci-ate what was done this season and he may realize the opportunity he has in front of him. Based on what he says in the media, he seems to really enjoy coaching some of these players, particularly the guards like Evans and freshman Lamonte Bearden.

I’m sure the team is not in any mood to reflect on what it accom-plished this season right now, but this season was a success regard-less of Friday’s loss. They got the program’s first-ever NCAA tour-nament game, and played an enter-taining one at that. A n d they should look on the bright side: as long as the leadership stays in place, there’s no reason they shouldn’t be back here next year.


Disappointing tournament loss doesn't take away from historic season

NCAA tournament run was never going to define Buffalo’s season


As the football team gets ready to start spring practice with new head coach Lance Leipold, the program’s former head coach will also be helping to prepare his new team.

Former football head coach Jeff Quinn took a job as an offen-sive analyst for Notre Dame last week. The position is a non-coach-ing role, but Quinn was reported-ly at the Fighting Irish’s practice last Wednesday. Mike Sanford was hired as Notre Dame’s offensive coordinator in February.

The Spectrum requested an inter-view with Quinn but was declined by Notre Dame Athletics until at least later in the spring football season.

The job reunites Quinn with Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly, under whom Quinn worked as an assistant for 21 years at Cin-cinnati, Central Michigan and Grand Valley State. Quinn told The Spectrum Kelly offered him a job at Notre Dame before he decided to take over the Buffalo head coach-ing position in 2009.

Quinn’s hire lessens what UB owes him, as he was guaranteed a base salary of $250,000 plus addi-tional compensation in 2015, ac-cording to his contract. Now, UB will only owe Quinn the differ-ence between the $250,000 it owes him and his salary at Notre Dame, which is unknown. He could have received up to $525,000 from UB through 2017 if he remained un-employed and was actively looking for a job.

Athletic Director Danny White extended Quinn’s contract at the end of the 2012 season when Quinn’s record was just 9-26. Quinn was the eighth head coach White has fired since taking over as Buffalo’s athletic director in May 2012.

Quinn went 20-36 in four-plus seasons in Buffalo and was fired at the end of a practice on Oct. 13, 2014 – less than 48 hours after the Bulls fell to 3-4 on the season with a 37-27 loss to Eastern Michigan.

Buffalo’s best season under Quinn came in 2013 when the team went 8-5 and received just its second-ev-er bowl invitation. The Bulls fell in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl to San Diego State 49-24.

Leipold, former Division III Wisconsin-Whitewater head coach, was hired in late November. Buffalo announced its 21-mem-ber recruiting class last month. Leipold said the Bulls were able to keep the majority of their prior commitments, but would not say how many of those 21 commits were originally Quinn’s recruits and how many were his own. Leipold retained two of Quinn’s assistant coaches: running backs coach Matt Simon and strength and head strength and condition-ing coach Greg Pyszczynski.

The Bulls are set to begin spring practice on Wednesday.


Quinn accepts position as offensive analyst, reunites with Brian Kelly

Former football coach Jeff Quinn hired by Notre Dame

JEFF QUINN -COURTESY OF ARMY ATH-

LETIC COMMUNICATIONS

Former football head coach Jeff Quinn coaches Buffalo during a 47-39 loss to Army on Sept. 6,

2014. Quinn will be an offensive analyst for Notre Dame under

Brian Kelly this season.


U.S. History 2(HIS 204)

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Women’s tennis (5-7, 1-1 Mid-American Conference)

The women’s tennis team earned its first MAC victory over Easter Michigan (5-10, 1-1 MAC) this past Sunday at the Miller Tennis Center. The Bulls won both of their doubles matches and four out of the six singles matches. Senior Laura Fernandez opened the day with a doubles victory with sophomore Lau-ra Holterbosch, giving the pair a 9-6 record for the season. Buffa-lo will host Miami Ohio (8-6) at 1 p.m. on Friday.Men’s tennis (8-6)

The men’s tennis team lost to No. 52 Cornell (8-5) this past Sun-day at the Reis Tennis Center in Ithaca, New York. Junior Sergio Arevalillo and sophomore Jon-athan Hannestad’s first doubles match of the day was suspend-ed at 4-4. Cornell won the rest of the doubles matches and swept all six single matches. The Bulls will travel to face No. 22 Harvard (12-5) at 10 a.m. on Saturday in Cam-bridge, Massachusetts.Men’s baseball (4-12, 1-2 MAC)

The Bulls were swept by No. 22 Houston in their three-game se-ries that started on March 13 and ended March 15 (17-7). The Bulls were outscored 23-4 over the three games. This past weekend, Buffa-lo won its first conference victory in the third game against Northern Illinois (11-11, 2-1 MAC).

The Huskies won the first two games in a doubleheader on Sat-urday, but the Bulls salvaged the series on Sunday, winning 5-1. Junior outfielder Nick Sinay stole his 11th base of the season and scored the game’s first run off of a triple from senior infielder Tan-ner Robinson. Buffalo will trav-el to play Canisius (10-13, 3-0 MAAC) at 3:15 p.m. on Tuesday at the Demske Sports Complex in Buffalo, New York.

Women’s softball (7-20)The women’s softball team

played in the Cal-State North-ridge Tournament from March 13-15 and went 1-3 over the four games. The following Tues-day, the Bulls dropped a double-header to Cal State Fullerton (20-12) and was outscored 16-4 over both games. The three-game los-ing streak ended when Buffa-lo defeated Harvard (7-12) on Wednesday in Los Angeles, but lost to Loyola Marymount (18-21) on the same day. On Thurs-day, San Diego (21-14) defeated the Bulls 2-0. Buffalo finished its road trip against California Poly-technic (16-16), but lost both games in the doubleheader. The Bulls were outscored 12-2 over the two games. Buffalo returns home to begin MAC play. The Bulls will play Kent State (17-6) on Saturday at 2 p.m.Men’s soccer

The Bulls traveled to Eng-land to play four spring training games and won each match they played over spring break. Buffa-lo began the tour on March 15 in London and won against the English professional team Hayes & Yeading 5-2.

Two days later, the Bulls went to Barnet where they shutout the U21 Barnet FC 2-0. Buffalo trav-eled northwest to Stoke for their third match of the tour where they defeated Stoke City U21 3-1. The Bulls concluded their tour in northern England, where they beat FirstPoint USA 5-0. Junior forward Steven Stryker tallied his first career hat trick in the victory.

Junior midfielder Russell Cice-rone also scored and had an as-sist, ending his tour with five goals and four assists in four games. Buffalo has returned to the states and will host St. Bo-naventure and Olivet College on Saturday at 2 p.m. and 4:30 p.m., respectively.


Soccer sweeps in the UK, baseball claims first conference victory

QUICK HITS:

QUENTIN HAYNESSPORTS EDITOR

You never exactly know when a

team or player is ready to take the leap.

Take this year’s men basketball team. The Bulls were 6-6 at one point in Mid-American Conference play, and it appeared like they were going to end up in the middle of the pack heading into the conference tournament.

You know the rest.This year, the women’s team went

through a similar situation, falling to 8-7 in conference play before win-ning their last three regular season games and claiming a top-4 seed in the conference tournament before falling to Ohio in the semifinals.

The women didn’t take the leap like the men, but based on the suc-cess from this season, I think next season is a perfect season for when they can take that leap.

I think the essentials are there to make that a reality. This team went 19-13 this season and 11-7 in the conference. Their defense took a step forward this year and led the conference in steals. They have a second gear on the defensive end – forcing turnovers and creating points off of them.

Offensively, I think they have some more work to do, but the tools are there for success. Buffalo is ag-gressive on offense and is always willing to make the additional pass for the easier basket. The shooting as a whole (free-throw shooting and 3-point shooting) is a concern, but again, the Bulls were good enough to win 19 games while being at the bottom of both categories.

The two biggest negatives, how-ever, is that the Bulls are losing two very important frontcourt players: Kristen Sharkey and Christa Baccas.

In Sharkey, the Bulls are losing a do-it-all offensive player. Sharkey was a good scorer for the Bulls, but she was also a good passer in the high-post. While her size was a det-riment on the defensive end, her pe-rimeter skills forced larger players to defend her, allowing her to pull larg-er opponents outside the paint, cre-ating a mismatch.

Baccas might be the bigger loss for this team. As the reigning MAC Defensive Player of the Year, Bac-cas allowed the Bulls to play small, thanks to ability to protect the rim. With smaller guards on the perim-eter, Baccas served as an eraser for perimeter mistakes. The team will miss her 2.3 blocks per game – first in the MAC Conference –next sea-son.

Sharkey and Baccas departure also mirrors the men’s team losing Javon McCrea and Josh Freelove last sea-son.

In order to replicate that pro-duction, the Bulls will look toward sophomore guard Alexus Malone to take a step forward into the Sharkey spot. She’s a mismatch, thanks to her ability to be a presence in the in-terior, while still being a threat from the outside with her jump shot. Malone’s play will be vital to the team’s success next season.

As for the other forward spot, we’re looking at uncertainty.

Head coach Felisha Legette-Jack will have plenty of size to choose from. Sophomore Cassie Oursler (6-foot-3), freshman Mariah Suchan (6-foot-1) and freshman Courtney Wilkins (6-foot-1) will battle for the other forward spot to accompany Malone. It wouldn’t shock me if all three got a chance to prove their val-ue early in the regular season before Legette-Jack adjusts her rotation ac-cordingly before conference play.

From the frontcourt to the back-court, the Bulls are loaded at both guard spots, creating a rotation that could be the best in the conference. Freshman Stephanie Reid and soph-omore Camera Miley will solidify the point guard position. In the sec-ond half of this season, Reid’s play

was impressive, both as a passer and taking care of the ball.

At the off-guard position, the Bulls will have junior guard Macken-zie Loesing and sophomore Joanna Smith. Smith is a good defender and turned it on offensively at the end of the season, drawing the praise of the coaching staff for her play.

As for Loesing, I’m expecting a great senior season. After the team was eliminated by Ohio in the MAC quarterfinals, Legette-Jack revealed that Loesing was playing through the majority of the season with torn ligaments in her ankle. With time to heal, Loesing will return next season as the team’s best outside shooter – a position that Buffalo desperately needed this season.

And in Legette-Jack, Bulls have the head coach to make it all work. I truly believe that Legette-Jack will be the head coach of the first Bulls team to make the NCAA Tourna-ment. She’s a great leader and in just quick conversations in the past, I think she has the system, the strat-egy and the perfect brand of lead-ership to get this team to the ‘Big Dance.’

It won’t be easy, the Bulls were fourth in the MAC this season and there were times where they strug-gled on the offensive end. But the roster is bringing back a handful of experienced guards, the size is on the roster to cover for the losses of Sharkey and Baccas and they have a really good head coach in place.

This is the time for this team to succeed. Buffalo was in the semifi-nals last season and it had a chance to defeat No. 1 Ohio. This team dealt with point guard uncertainty, a player – Rachel Gregory – quitting the team and a handful of inexperi-enced players getting the bulk of the playing time and were still ranked in the top four in the conference.

If the Bulls can solve their for-ward rotation and get just a bit bet-ter production from outside shoot-ing, the Bulls should be able to not only replicate their 2014-15 run, but perform better in the regular season.

The program’s first ever NCAA Tournament bid is imminent.


After WNIT loss, Bulls poised to take next step with roster,

coach combination The next step


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2015 MEN’SSEASON

Nov. 14, 2014

Justin Moss begins his MAC Player of the Year campaign with a breakout 25-point perfor-mance in Buffalo’s 69-67 season-opening win over South Dakota State.

The Bulls gain national exposure with a 71-52 loss on the road to No. 1 team in the country, Kentucky. Buffalo led the still unbeaten Wildcats 38-33 at halftime.

Nov. 16, 2014

Dec. 28, 2014

Buffalo puts itself higher in RPI rank-ings with a 68-56 loss to NCAA Tournament No. 1 seed Wisconsin in which it again led at halftime.

The Bulls head into MAC play with a 9-3 record after defeat-ing Cornell behind Shannon Evans’ career-high 33-point performance.

Jan. 3, 2015

Jan. 30, 2015Buffalo defeats MAC East leader Kent State 80-55 in a nationally televised game behind the largest Alumni Arena crowd in four years.

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BASKETBALLTIME LINE

Feb. 14, 2015The Bulls sit at just 6-6 in the MAC after a three-game losing streak that culminated in a 75-74 loss to Cen-tral Michigan on a last second miss by Xavier Ford.

Buffalo clinches a triple-bye in the MAC Tourna-ment and the MAC East title with a 77-75 win over Bowling Green. The game was attend-ed by 6,607 people – including roughly 1,900 students – which was the third highest atten-dance in Alumni Arena history.

March 6, 2015

March 13, 2015

The Bulls advance to their first MAC Championship game since 2012 with a 68-59 win over Akron in the MAC Semifinals.

Buffalo wins its first MAC Champi-onship and clinch-es its first-ever NCAA Tournament bid with an 89-84 win over Central Michigan.

March 14, 2015 The No. 5 seed Bulls fall 68-62 to No. 5 seed West Virginia in their first-ever NCAA Tournament game.

March 20, 2015


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CLASSIFIEDS

HOROSCOPES Wednesday, March 25, 2015FROM UNIVERSAL UCLICK

Crossword of the Day

DOWN

ACROSS

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1 Attired 5 “Pro”

follower 9 Sprinters’ paths 14 “Take one!” 15 Cheddar relative 16 Obtain, as ven-

geance 17 “Who knows what

___ lurks in the hearts ...”

18 Centers 19 Aquarium fish 20 Biscuit ingredient,

perhaps 23 Blue book filler 24 Hammer

or chisel 25 Flying

saucer, for short

27 Key employee?

32 Some metric units 36 Bringing up the

rear 39 General vicinity 40 Queen’s attendants 43 “Miss ___ Re-

grets” 44 Musical end 45 Conquers 46 “You ___!” (“Cer-

tainly”) 48 ___ de deux 50 Strongly suggest 53 Zinger 58 Music teacher’s les-

son 63 Less inept 64 What

Edited by Timothy E. Parker March 23, 2015REPENT! By Lewis Forte

littering may produce

65 Utah’s lily 66 Red Sea peninsula 67 Work to shape

a film 68 Isaac’s hairy first-

born 69 Onetime Russian

rulers 70 Where people ask

to be hit? 71 Unused portion

1 Where the heart is 2 Kind of

embankment 3 Nutmeg coverings 4 Dutch

pottery city 5 Alleviation of pain 6 Hurly-burlies 7 Unsaid but under-

stood 8 Acid type 9 Didn’t hold back 10 Figure skater’s jump 11 Alliance acronym 12 Almondy shade 13 Galaxy standout 21 Get repeated value

from 22 Must,

informally 26 Sundry

assortment 28 Spread for a spread 29 Tennessee state

flower

30 Posted a parcel

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tist 47 Overbearing pride 49 Prefix with “crat” 51 Rubbernecker 52 Practice piece for one

instrument 54 Electric-dart shooter 55 Corpulent 56 Indian melodies 57 Stream dweller 58 Certain protest 59 Eastern waist ties 60 Bone by

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action

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QUENTIN HAYNESSPORTS EDITOR

For the second consecutive year, the

women’s basketball team finished its sea-son fourth in the Mid-American Confer-ence.

But instead of ending the season in the MAC Tournament like they did last year, the Bulls ended their year in the postsea-son for the second time in program his-tory.

On Monday, the school held a “Bulls Basketball Celebration” to honor the men and women’s program for their success this season. Both teams made it to the postseason, with the women making an appearance in the Women’s National Invi-tational Tournament (WNIT) for the first time in program history.

Athletic Director Danny White took the stage to laud both teams for their suc-cess during the regular season.

“This year, the women’s basketball team had their first 19-win season since the

2000-01 season, first back-to-back win-ning seasons since 1999-00, 2000-01,” White said. “Second time in school his-tory we made the Mid-American Confer-ence semifinals and the first time since 2000-01 that we swept Big Four compe-tition.”

As Bulls head coach Felisha Legette-Jack took the podium, she said that most of the team’s success was due to the “hun-ger” despite player situations surround-ing the roster. Forward Rachael Gregory transferred in the middle of the season.

“If I had to describe our team in one word, I would say ‘hungry,’” Legette-Jack said. “We lost players midseason, had play-ers quit and I would walk into the locker room and the girls would say, ‘What’s next, coach?’ It was a great season because our players made sure to block out all distrac-tions when they stepped out on the court.”

The Bulls will bring in at least three re-cruits and return five of their top seven players entering next season.

One player that helped the Bulls in the second half of the season was freshman

guard Stephanie Reid. As a point guard, Reid came in and immediately took over the starting point guard spot. Her calm de-meanor and quick adaptation into the of-fense made her a starter for her time with the team this season and is projected to as-sume the starting role next season as well.

With the program’s success, Legette-Jack said that she hopes that the expo-sure can open more doors for the team and hopes Buffalo will be thought of for more than just “cold weather.”

“People instantly assume cold weath-er and you won’t come,” Legette-Jack said. “But when they do come and see the beautiful arena, the academics standards and the people already here. Once they come here, it’s a wrap.”

The Bulls finished the season with a 19-13 record and an 11-7 record in the con-

ference. They lost in the semifinals of the MAC Tournament to Ohio and failed to capture an automatic bid into the NCAA tournament.

Two days later, the Bulls were rewarded with a bid into the WNIT.

Senior forward Kristen Sharkey said that the opportunity to play in the WNIT was great for her final season, as well as the program moving forward.

“I was disappointed when we lost to Ohio because I knew the NCAA tour-nament dream was gone,” Sharkey said. “However, when we got the call a few days later that we got the chance to go to West Virginia and play in the school’s first WNIT, I was ready. This is what I wanted to do at the University at Buffalo, play in the postseason. I’m glad I got to do it in my final year.”

Sharkey ended her career in the loss to West Virginia in the WNIT. She fin-ished her Bulls career with two postsea-son tournament appearances. She also fin-ished No. 8 in program history with 1,264 points and No. 10 in rebounds with 759.

After the event, Legette-Jack said, “you can’t replace a player like Kristen Shar-key.”

Junior guard Mackenzie Loesing will en-ter next season as one of the few seniors on Legette-Jack’s roster. After the loss to Ohio in the MAC Tournament, Legette-Jack re-vealed that Loesing was playing most of the season with torn ligaments in her foot.

Entering next season healthy, Loesing said going “one step further” is the goal for the returning players.

“We saw how tough it is now,” Loesing said. “What [senior forward Christa Bac-cas] and Sharkey did for us was important. Now, there’s precedence for this team and this program moving forward. We want to make the postseason next year, we want to make it to the NCAA Tournament.”

Legette-Jack was also inspired by men’s head coach Bobby Hurley and the team that made the national tournament this season.

“Watching Hurley take his team to the NCAA’s, we want to do the same,” Legette-Jack said. “I believe in our players returning and some of the new recruits coming in. We were close this year, I think we can get to that point and even further next season.”


JORDAN OSCAR, THE SPECTRUM

The team celebrates following a quarterfinals victory over Western Michigan.

SPORTS DESK

The men’s basketball team (23-10, 12-6 Mid-American Conference) ended its his-toric season with a loss to West Virginia (25-9, 11-7 Big 12) 68-62 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament last Saturday. It was the first NCAA tournament bid in program history after joining Division I in the ear-ly 1990s. The loss ended a season in which Buffalo won the MAC East and the pro-gram’s first-ever MAC Championship.

Buffalo was picked in the preseason polls to finish just fourth in the MAC East after graduating three seniors including UB all-time leading scorer Javon McCrea. But with MAC Player of the Year Justin Moss, a ca-reer season for senior forward Xavier Ford and the emergence of sophomore guard Shannon Evans as the team’s starting point guard, the team was able to replace the pro-duction for a historic season. Three-point shooting: C

There were many moments throughout the season where the 3-pointer was key in a victory. Senior forward Will Regan hit a big 3-pointer to put the Bulls ahead of Bowling Green in their last game of the season and senior forward Xavier Ford’s 3-pointer tied the game with West Virginia in the dance. But it’s hard to base a team’s 3-point shoot-ing based on clutch moments. It must be based on the season overall. And this sea-son, the Bulls were inconsistent from deep.

The Bulls shot 34 percent from beyond the arc as a whole and not one player on

the team shot above 40 percent. The closest anyone came to shooting that high was ju-nior guard Jarryn Skeete, whose role on the team was mainly a 3-point specialist, shoot-ing 38.6 percent.Foul Shooting: B

A few games in the season ended up as losses for the Bulls simply because they couldn’t sink their free throws. Their game against West Virginia – where the Bulls shot just 64 percent – was a prime example.

Overall, the Bulls shot 71.9 percent from the charity stripe over the course of the sea-son. Sophomore guard Shannon Evans had the highest percentage, shooting 79.9 per-cent from the line. Junior forward Justin Moss got to the line the most, taking 237 foul shots and hitting 173 (73 percent). Rebounding: A

While the Bulls may have struggled in some areas this season, rebounding wasn’t one of them.

The Bulls averaged 38.4 rebounds a game this season, culminating with a No. 16 rank-ing in the nation in boards. For reference, Kentucky, the No. 1 team in the country whom Buffalo played this season, is ranked No. 21 in the country with 38.2 per game.

Moss led the way for the Bulls, and the MAC, with 9.2 rebounds a game. The clos-est player in rebounds was Ford, who grabbed 6.2 boards a game.Ball Control: B

The Bulls turned the ball over many times this season, but they also made their oppo-nents turn the ball over much more than they did.

The Bulls are ranked No. 42 in the na-tion in turnover margin. They turned the ball over 378 times, but Buffalo’s opponents turned it over 448 times, giving the Bulls a 2.1 turnover ratio.

Evans led the team in TOs with 84, lead-ing anyone else on the team by 10.Overall offense: B+

Regardless of the opponent, the Bulls have always managed to put up numbers.

The Bulls averaged 75 points per game this season, ending the season ranked No. 28 in the nation in scoring – one spot above Kentucky. The Bulls had consistent scoring throughout the roster, with six players who averaged over 7.2 points per game. Moss led the Bulls with 579 points this season, aver-aging 17.5 a game. Evans wasn’t far behind with 507 points and 15.4 average a game. Defense: B

Besides outscoring their opponents 2,462 to 2,253 on the season, the Bulls also stole the ball 248 times and blocked 132 shots.

The Bulls were No. 3 in the MAC in de-fensive field-goal percentage, and were No. 1 in defensive three-point percentage. Con-

ference opponents only shot 41.1 percent on average against the Bulls from the field, and 31.7 percent from beyond the arc.

In the steals category, Evans led the Bulls with 56 on the season. Junior forward Ra-heem Johnson led with 37 blocks.Bench Production: B

Buffalo’s athleticism allowed for an eight-man rotation for the majority of the season, as it used only three bench players. Regan, Johnson and junior forward Rodell Wiggin-ton were the only ones who put up signifi-cant numbers.

But all three bench players were effectiveWigginton and Johnson were key contrib-

utors on the defensive side of the ball, while Regan gave the team some points off the bench, including two huge 3-pointers in the MAC East championship and MAC cham-pionship games that helped propel the Bulls to the next round.

Wigginton averaged 7.3 points per game, and had 17 blocks to accompany his 26 steals on the season. Johnson averaged 2.8 points per game, but led the team in blocks with 37. Regan had 6.1 points per game, 16 blocks, and 17 assists in his first and only year coming off the bench. Coaching: A

Head coach Bobby Hurley and the Bulls recorded a program record-tying 23 wins this season. He led the Bulls to a MAC championship and the school’s first ever ap-pearance in the NCAA tournament.

Despite not receiving a single MAC Coach of the Year vote, Hurley was named a finalist for the Hugh Durham National Coach of the Year Award, which is awarded to the country’s top mid-major coach.

The Bulls are currently 42-20 in Hurley’s two seasons as head coach. The core of the team is returning next season, and as long as Hurley does as well, he will only help Buffa-lo reach the next level.


Season hardwood

report card

women's basketball reflects on historic season

Bulls earned a spot in the postseason for the second time in program history

YUSONG SHI, THE SPECTRUM

Justin Moss goes up for a basket in Buffa-lo’s 77-71 victory over Western Michigan in Alumni Arena on Jan. 27.

the spectrum volume 64 issue 61

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