BUFFALO, N.Y. — Whether it was called HSBC Arena to First Niagara Center to KeyBank Center, Buffalo has seen its share of significant March Madness moments while serving as a men's basketball host seven times.
The first time Buffalo hosted March Madness was in 2000. It most recently returned in 2022, and it will be back again two years from now.
Here's a look back at some of the players, coaches, and games that made each of those seven tournaments special.
2000: Bobby Knight's final game at Indiana
No one realized it at the time, but this would become the final game at Indiana for coach Bobby Knight, who was mired in controversy surrounding accusations that he choked former player Neil Reed. Six months later, in September, he was fired, making this first-round game in Buffalo the last of his 29-year career with the Hoosiers, going 662–239 (.735). The 77-57 loss on March 17, 2000, wasn’t even that close, as the No. 6-seeded Hoosiers (20-8) trailed No. 11 Pepperdine by as many as 29 points. The Waves were led by first-year coach Jan van Breda Kolff. That name might sound familiar to Western New York sports fans: Van Breda Kolff spent one more season in Southern California before becoming head coach at St. Bonaventure, where he went 30-27 over two seasons. Also notable: Jay Wright made the NCAA tournament for the first time. But it wasn't with Villanova, where he won two national championships. It was with Hofstra, which lost 86-66 to No. 3 seed Oklahoma State.
2004: UConn starts championship run in Buffalo
Bobby Knight returned to Buffalo, this time as the coach at Texas Tech, but these tournament games featured a truly memorable team. The road to UConn’s second national championship in school history began at HSBC Arena, where the second-seeded Huskies beat Vermont 70-53 in the first round and dumped DePaul 72-55. That Huskies team was stacked with players who would become first-round picks in the NBA Draft, including the Nos. 2 and 3 overall picks that summer: Emeka Okafor to the Charlotte Bobcats and Ben Gordon to the Chicago Bulls. Charlie Villanueva would also go on to be a top-10 pick in 2005, going No. 7 to the Toronto Raptors. These Buffalo games also had No. 1 seed St. Joseph, led by Jameer Nelson and Delonte West, which lost in the Elite Eight to Oklahoma State.
2007: Duke falls in the first round; Steph Curry impresses
Sometimes, nothing unites college basketball fans like a Duke tournament loss, and that happened at HSBC Arena on March 16, 2007. That’s when No. 11 seed Virginia Commonwealth knocked off the sixth-seeded Blue Devils 79-77 in the first round, thanks to a 15-foot jumper by Eric Maynor with 1.8 seconds to play. Two players on Mike Krzyzewski’s roster are now head coaches: Jon Scheyer replaced Coach K himself at Duke, and Greg Paulus has spent the past five seasons leading Niagara. It’s worth noting that among other teams that came to Buffalo, Butler had a young assistant coach named Brad Stevens, now the president of basketball operations for the Boston Celtics, and Davidson had a freshman named Steph Curry who averaged 21.5 points in his first season. Curry scored 30 points for No. 13 Davidson during an 82-70 loss to 4-seed Maryland.
2010: 5 years later, Syracuse avenges loss to Vermont
What would become Bob Huggins's final trip to the Final Four started with first and second-round wins at HSBC Arena. The Mountaineers, a 2 seed, opened with a 77-50 win against Morgan State, then beat Missouri 68-59 in the second round. West Virginia eventually lost in the Final Four to Duke, which beat Butler to win it all. Syracuse also enjoyed those early-round games in Buffalo, with the top-seeded Orange beating Vermont and Gonzaga to make it back to the Sweet 16. The Vermont win, despite it being a 1-16 game, was no small thing Jim Boeheim. Syracuse fell 60-57 in a first-round upset against the Catamounts five years earlier.
2014: Huskies start another title run in Buffalo
This was another UConn championship run that began with two wins in Buffalo, except now the Sabres’ home was called First Niagara Center. How the Huskies won it all was very different, too. Kevin Ollie had replaced Jim Calhoun as UConn’s head coach, and this team wasn’t stacked with NBA lottery picks like the 2004 team. But a first-round win against Milwaukee led to a 77-65 upset of No. 2 seed Villanova in the second round in a bracket that was among the most unpredictable in recent tournament history. A 7 seed led by Shabazz Napier, UConn beat eighth-seeded Kentucky to capture the school’s fourth championship. A couple of schools with huge fan bases left Buffalo disappointed: No. 11 Dayton upset 6-seed Ohio State 60-59 in the first round, then knocked off third-seeded Syracuse 55-53 to reach the Sweet 16.
2017: Villanova loses in stunning 2nd-round upset
It might be hard to imagine, but a No. 1 seed with current NBA players Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, Donte DiVincenzo, and Mikal Bridges didn’t survive the opening weekend in Buffalo. The top-seeded Wildcats had no problem with Mount St. Mary’s, but a 65-62 loss to No. 8 seed Wisconsin quickly brought about a jarring end to their postseason. Hart scored 19 points and Brunson 11 for the Wildcats, who shot only 41.2 percent from the field (21 of 51). An assistant on that Villanova team, George Halcovage, just completed his first season as head coach at the University at Buffalo. Villanova won national championships under Jay Wright in 2016 and 2018. But that 2017 appearance in Buffalo is one that most Wildcat fans would rather forget. Villanova also lost in the second round as a 1 seed in 2015. It was the third time in four years Wisconsin knocked off a No. 1 seed in the tournament.
2022: 12 seeds enjoy a memorable day
As friendly as Buffalo has been to UConn in past tournaments, it just didn’t work out for the Huskies in 2022, when they lost 70-63 to New Mexico State. They weren’t the only 5 seed to lose to a 12 seed, though, on St. Patrick’s Day; Richmond knocked off high-flying Iowa 67-53 as fans who packed KeyBank Center enjoyed a couple of upsets. There was far less suspense when it came to the second-round games, however. No. 4 seed Arkansas ground out a 53-48 win to oust New Mexico State in a brutally physical game, capping a week in which Razorbacks coach Eric Musselman on social media shared photos of himself wearing Bills and Sabres shirts, scoring points with the locals during a run to the Elite Eight. No. 4 seed Providence had a much easier time, dispatching Richmond 79-51 and cruising into the Sweet 16.
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