"Onyenucheya, I'm fired up!"

This was going to be the week that I resign myself to the fact that I'm the senior arts and life editor who happens to love basketball, and write some sort of bullcrap article about what the cast of Boy Meets World is up to these days.

Not today, Corey Matthews. Today is UB Bulls basketball fever.

I've played in high school ice hockey championships. I've sung in front of 500 people. I've swum in the Atlantic Ocean in New Smyrna Beach, Fla. at 5 a.m. with my closest friends and bandmates. I've watched the Buffalo Bills go to four straight Super Bowls and the Sabres play in the Stanley Cup (Jets, Islanders, what?). Those are all great feelings.

But I've also watched it all come together for the basketball team at my college and, after UB defeated Kent State 77-66 yesterday night, I'm ecstatic. I know there is season left, but the Bulls are beating teams despite the fact that they haven't even played their best for 40 minutes this year. Not once.

School spirit has always been hard to come by for me. It's easy for me to be proud of the fact that Robert Creeley taught here and that English department secretary Linda Bogdan is quite possibly the most helpful woman in the universe. It's a little harder for me to be proud of Hoobastank or Godsmack for a Fest.

College basketball is a different story, something I almost lament typing in a society that pays way too much attention to athletics. Yet I can't ignore the topic on a day when it seems the NHLPA may have realized that the people who love their game want to watch it.

The experience of going to a game at Alumni Arena is something that I would've never imagined freshman year. Every game night I'd return home to see that the Bulls had lost a home game to a crowd of 14 excited team parents and opposing fans.

Still, at that time, when UB led North Carolina for a half of basketball over five years ago, when I was deciding whether or not to attend the school, there was something about reading head coach Reggie Witherspoon's quotes at that time that gave me hope for the future.

Despite a remaining schedule that still has tough match-ups with Ohio, Akron and Fresno State, not to mention a first round MAC tournament game, it's hard not to plan for a second annual trip to Cleveland for the tournament quarterfinals, semifinals and finals.

So let's fake plan it. I learned last year that the bars in Cleveland close at 2 a.m., and trust me, I learned the hard, "Hey, that's a crapload of bile!" way. So this year, while we dance after the Bulls potentially go to the Big Dance, let's teach Cleveland how late bars are open in Buffalo.

What I'm trying to say is that Andrew Atman is bringing back to big hair heat, Darwin Young is representing Buffalo and everyone is trying to figure out exactly when roster addition Barnard Onyenucheya joined the team. Let's hope that in Cleveland, with a game well in hand, we can applaud our seniors as the new blood takes the court, learning just what a program can be.

In the words of the legendary Sly and the Family Stone, I want to take it higher.

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On a personal note, after seeing our Web site hits for January 2005, a shout-out to our 10 readers in Peru. You're the reason we do this. Some of you should be checking more often. Estonia, we're looking at you.