Buffalo, NY (HSBC Arena)

March 19th and 21st, 2010. 1st and 2nd rounds.

After last years near debacle in Philly, Buffalo, NY held high expectations in the thoughts and minds of the Tourney Trip collective. This trip had a little more go into the planning in order to pull it off. This year, we went international.

I met up with Nate and Chet (pilot and copilot), Sam and Jimmy (hheellloooo), in Toronto, Canada. They were driving through, and flying into Toronto prevented me from having some sick 4 hour lay over in the middle of no where. On paper, this seemed like a great idea. We’ll elaborate later.

I flew out of Vegas on Wednesday 3/17, caught a red eye about 11:30 PM, and hooked up with the caravan headed to Buffalo the following morning. After clearing the boarder and arriving into town, we were checked into our spacious condo like hotel room, bags dropped, and downtown Buffalo by Noon to catch the tip off of the trip. One of our best ideas was to get there a day early so we could have an ‘extra off day’ in the sense that we had nothing to do but watch the opening day games, drink beers, and eat chicken wings. On a hint from a former local on the internets, we hit up a nice brew pub a few blocks from HSBC and set up shop for several hours.

It didn’t take us long to dive right in. Not as good at this drinking thing as I once was. Didn’t help that I was working on 3 hours of recirculated air jet plane travel sleep either, but I made do. We always do.

Jimmy tried to rustle up some old Lexington lore with his Fighting Irish, but it was all for naught. Jimmy would not find himself passed out under a tree on a local campus this time. Perhaps that was for the better.

Now, Buffalo is famous for it’s namesake, buffalo wings. Just like Philadelphia was famous for the cheese-steak, we figured trying out the local fare was a must. We did so with great gusto, as you can order wings in this town by the bucket.

We had a grand ol time at the brew pub downtown. After we had our fill of microbrews, we wandered over to HSBC to catch a little bit of the free practice sessions going on. From there we head back to the condo to watch the rest of the games for the day and make fun of things that we all could laugh at. When you get us all together into a hotel room after drinking, we sound like a rabble of giggling girls. The next day, it was all about the games.

#2 West Virginia vs #15 Morgan State – West VA is coached by none other than Thuggins himself. He wears track suits. Morgan State’s coach once was into an altercation over a ham sandwich. Morgan State got off to a quick start, but it was just a tease. The Mountaineers are very gifted athletically, and took control of this game before halftime. Not to be forgotten are the Morgan State dance team, their band, and their awesome mascot, the dancing bear. Their band was quite gangster, breaking shit down, and dropping mad beats for the cheer team to run their shit. LOL. West Virginia had a chic dressed up like Daniel Boone shaking a rifle that obviously didn’t work. It was our contention that Morgan State should start every game with 5 extra points, just as long as the bear had shown up, and did the moonwalk. West Virginia 77, Morgan State 50.

#7 Clemson vs #10 Missouri – Not sure why we end up with the most random games ever, but we do. Clemson? Who cares about Clemson. Missouri is gangster and plays 40 mins of hell or something, but whatever. Game was interesting for the most part, with Missouri pulling away late. Turned over Clemson what seemed like 50 times. Kim English looks like a nice player. Tigers vs Tigers ended up with the Tigers pulling out the win. Clemson 78, Missouri 86.

Session break found us wandering a couple blocks to a sports bar to set up Chet and Nate to watch the Michigan State game, grab a few beers and recoup for the second session a few hours later.

#1 Syracuse vs #16 Vermont – Yeah, we were suckers. Syracuse coming off a two game losing streak. Missing it’s best front court player. Vermont playing with the ghosts of Tyler Coppenrath and TJ Sorrentine. Instead, it was a brutal beat down that was a yawner before halftime. Tourney Trip, cursed again. Not much to be said about a lay-up drill. Syracuse 79, Vermont 56.

#8 Gonzaga vs #9 Florida State – Potentially our best game of the day. Two teams most of us had never seen. Even match-up on paper. Mid Major hero Gonzaga. Should have been decent, right? Zags went up by 9 or 10 early, and sleepwalked the rest of the way through. Every time the Seminoles would try to bring things closer, Gonzaga would go on another little spurt and keep things in check. Zag’s hung on at the end. Yawn. Gonzaga 67, Florida State 60.

Cursed, again. Four games, four basic yawners. With what went on the day before, dubbed as upset Thursday, we were hoping to see the ‘Cuse or West Virginia fall. Instead, we got what you see above. Such is life.

We found Nate and Chet back at the vehicle, reveling in Sparty’s near non-victory. On our way to the parking lot, Jimmy, Sam, and I happened across a suspect looking building that potentially could be used for crimes of unmentionable nature. It also had a lot of old paint cans.

Next day it was back downtown to set up shop and watch a few games. Of course, we were treated to more upsets. Northern Iowa beats Kansas on the most onions 3 pointer in the world, we were set up sipping on drinks and rooting against clowns in the bar who were desperately clinging to their brackets. Eat shit bracket boy.

We wrapped things up to head back to the condo for a little resting up and packing up. The next day was check out day, two more games to watch, and a mad dash to get home for work on Monday. Sam decided everybody should eat at a questionable joint called “Mighty Taco”. Only two took the dive. We set up shop and lit a nice fire to cap off the last night in Buffalo.

Woke up in the morning, packed up our shit, and hit the road. No tip for the maid, but we did let her know the 1/4th of a case left in the fridge was hers, as well as a half pack of cigs.

#1 Syracuse vs #8 Gonzaga – Trip collective was hoping for a good match-up. Gonzaga was going to have to play a ton better than the previous day to keep up with Syracuse. It didn’t happen. ‘Cuse again was doing lay up and dunk drills for most of the game. The curse continues. I could have taken a nap had it not been for the clowns sitting behind us talking about pending real estate deals or their shitty brackets. Syracuse 87, Gonzaga 65.

#2 West Virginia vs #10 Missouri – Ok. Here we go. This was a great game, but it only garnered 1/2 the attention of the tourney trip crew. During the 30 minutes between games, Sam and Jimmy found a way to get to the club level of HSBC and found a lounge in the back with several TV’s on, showing all of the other games across the country. Of course, this was to find the Michigan State game. We found a TV with their game on against Maryland, and did our best to keep tabs on both games. Thuggins and co lead the whole way, but at least it was close towards the end. West Virginia 68, Missouri 59.

• During this game, Michigan State squared off against Maryland. There were a couple groups of Maryland fans keeping tabs on this game along with us. Kalin Lucas went down in the 1st half, but Durrell Summers was having a career day to pace Sparty headed into halftime. In the second half, it was most of the same, until quite late. Turtles found a way to take a one point lead with under 30 seconds left. Quite the back and forth exchange with Maryland going up, MSU going up, Maryland hitting a shot again, and then Korie Lucious hitting the onions 3 to end the game and send Sparty to the Sweet 16. It was then we jumped up, put a hole in the ceiling with a chair, called everybody a bunch of dick holes and told everybody to eat shit. Winning with class, Tourneytrip.com.

From here we dashed out to the ride and sped out of town. This only lasted for 30 minutes. The boarder was beyond backed up, to the point this guy could get out and complete a yoga routine right in front of us.

I had a flight to catch, and time was a huge priority. It took nearly two hours to clear through the checkpoint. Then, it was Nate’s skilled commanding of the whip, and Chet’s ample Tom-Tom functioning that got us to Toronto with a cool 45 minutes to catch my flight. Of course I was flagged for additional screening and questioning at security for the first time in my long history of flying. I packed up my shit again and took off for the gate to find the door closed. With an eye roll from the gate attendee, she opened it up, got me on the plane, and I was off. The rest of the crew took off into the barren Canadian wilderness to arrive home later that night.

The trip had come and gone once more.