With the winter sports schedule now officially over, it has become obvious that some teams have to change their mindsets and toughen their schedules in order to obtain their ultimate goals of becoming Mid-American Conference champions and national contenders.
The men's soccer team, the wrestling team and, to a slightly lesser extent, the men's basketball team are all on the verge of becoming strong, nationally recognized programs, but all fell short this season as a result of weak out-of-conference scheduling.
Now, I'll be the first to admit that hindsight is 20/20, and that all three teams had what seemed to be sensible reasons for scheduling weak opponents before the beginning of their MAC schedules, but the fact remains that all three suffered because of it.
Although the players won't admit it, the men's soccer team probably surprised themselves as much as anybody when they broke the top 20 in national rankings last fall. After a disappointing 2005 season, the team was forced to bounce back from injuries and a hazing scandal. Defying their critics and taking their lack of experience in stride, the team went on an out-of-conference tear before losing to Akron in a shootout in the MAC finals.
Unfortunately for the Bulls, that out-of-conference schedule, which was probably meant to help the young players gain experience, came back to hurt them as they were denied an NCAA bid.
The wrestling team faces the unique challenge of an individual sport that has a drastic array of talent. On one end of the lineup the team has had trouble filling the 125-pound weight class, largely due to freshman problems with making weight, while at 197 pounds, Kyle Cerminara was ranked No. 2 in the nation heading into the NCAA tournament.
Although the team arguably faces the strongest non-conference schedule of any UB program, they still see a fair share of weak opponents in an effort to gain experience for their younger wrestlers. Facing a weak non-conference schedule left Cerminara and 133-pounder Mark Budd virtually unchallenged throughout the year and as a result they went into the national tournament unprepared.
Both wrestled as if they were overwhelmed and both finished out of the top eight of their weight classes, despite being All-American-caliber athletes.
The men's basketball team may have been farther away from the national scene than the men's soccer and wrestling programs, but they also may have suffered from poor scheduling more than the other two.
After losing four key seniors from last year's squad, the team scheduled games against weak out-of-conference opponents - with the exception of Boston College - in order to ease the youthful team into its MAC schedule.
Although the Bulls started the season off 12-1 it did them little good in the end. The team finished the season conference record under .500 during the regular season, and then was knocked out of the MAC tournament by a fairly weak Kent State squad.
The point isn't that coaches John Astudillo, Jim Beichner and Reggie Witherspoon don't know what they are doing, but rather that they need to make adjustments for next season.
These three teams need to realize that they are not in the same place they were a year or two ago. They are no longer struggling at the bottom of the Division I barrel. However, if they want to continue to improve and move out of NCAA mediocrity and into national contention, they have to begin to face tougher competition.
As a fan, I would much rather see these teams constantly lose, even if it means losing badly, to Indiana, Hofstra or Syracuse rather than beating up on teams like Buff State and Ithaca.
Playing stronger teams may mean worse records and fewer home games, but it would also mean taking strides towards Buffalo being mentioned in the same breath as programs like Maryland and Oklahoma State.
All three Buffalo teams are in an exciting position, a position that hopefully more teams will be in very soon, but it isn't one that any of them should be content with.
They always say if you want to be the best you have to beat the best, but if you want to beat the best, first you have to be on the same field, mat or court with them.
