Basketball? Buffalo prefers its football and hockey

BUFFALO, N.Y. — I’ve covered NCAA basketball tournaments in major cities and less.

Los Angeles and New York. Chicago and Denver. Atlanta and Seattle.

Auburn Hills and Worcester. Columbus and Dayton.

Buffalo is a city in which I’d never set foot until early Wednesday morning. I don’t know what to make of it, and it just doesn’t matter. A basketball court’s a basketball court, an arena’s an arena.

But I’d have rather been sent to Milwaukee, which I could have reached easily in four hours, then Buffalo, which required a lot of maneuvering on short notice. I was the last person an Uber or Lyft picked up at the Buffalo airport in the middle of the night because the first ride I booked bailed on me just as my app said the driver was three minutes away.

I cursed. I’m not proud of that. But oh, I cursed. I thought I might have to sleep in the airport. Airports don’t like that.

But it all finally worked out and I got downtown, though the hotel didn’t have my reservation despite me showing the proof of it I had printed out before I left Iowa. Things happen. Especially when a desk clerk senses the would-be hotel guest is on the verge of a nervous breakdown at 2 a.m.

Now, it’s basketball in Buffalo. It’s the seventh time the city has hosted the NCAA men’s tourney though this isn’t a basketball town. There are Division I teams here in Canisius and the University of Buffalo, and Niagara is nearby, but I don’t think “One Shining Moment” ever followed any of their postseason games.

The city has had an NHL franchise for a half-century, the Sabres. There is a statue outside KeyBank Center honoring the French Connection, the line of Gil Perreault, Richard Martin and Rene Robert that played together in the 1970s and scored tons of goals.

Buffalo also had the NBA’s Buffalo Braves from 1970 to 1978, but it had to play some home games in Toronto to alleviate the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium’s scheduling problems.The NBA once was kind of rag-tag in many places. This was one of them.

The Braves left for San Diego to become the Clippers, and eventually left San Diego for Los Angeles.

A lot of people in Buffalo wear Buffalo Bills garb. I’ve seen it. This feels like the Des Moines of the East, but Des Moines doesn’t have the Bills.

The first six NCAA tourneys here sold out. This one has about 3,000 tickets left for Thursday’s sessions, 2,000 for Saturday’s second round. It’s a sign of the times. Everybody seems to be selling a few less tickets for sports than they did pre-pandemic.

Except, that is, the first-round NCAA women’s tournament games in Iowa City Friday. Holy cats!

But it’s not snowing. In fact, it was warm here Wednesday and some bars and restaurants were serving al fresco. The annual snowfall in Buffalo is like 85 inches per year. There’s still some in carefully placed piles here, but it was 61 degrees Wednesday at 7 p.m. and will be 64 Thursday if the meteorologist is right.

St. Patrick’s Day looks like it will be a big deal here. I remember covering NCAA games on a St. Patrick’s Day in Providence, R.I., long ago, and the streets smelled of boiled corned beef and cabbage coming from downtown bars.

You don’t forget a thing like that, try as you might.

This just in: The Buffalo Bills signed pass-rushing superstar Von Miller to a six-year, $120 million deal. The mood here will be good tonight.