'Thaaaaaat's myyyyyy godsonnnnn!

It started rather innocuously three years ago on a late, drunken night in the second floor living room of 86 Humboldt Parkway. Tuned to ESPN as the late night re-runs of the AND1 Mixtape Tour ran throughout the wee hours, my friends and I gave birth to a new ritual.

As the on-court announcer ran up and down, screaming, "Thaaaaaat's myyyyyy godsonnnnn," the idea was born for my friends and I to dub players on the men's basketball team as our godsons.

Everyone had a favorite player, but this was taking it a step further. This was something that no other UB fans had with the team. This made them our players, our team. It made games more exciting. As my friend Chris said, "When your godson does bah, you do bah."

Some were chosen because of personal relationships, or maybe a physical likeness, or maybe just because you liked the way the guy played.

My friend, Big Bane, chose Danny Hustle (Gilbert) because he loved the way he played. He worked his ass off and never got credit for it. Before he was Danny Hustle and before the Bulls were winning games in the high teens, he was just Danny Gilbert, a guy who gave it his all and Bane loved him for it.

Chris knew Mario Jordan from living in Red Jacket the previous year and from there it was an easy choice.

Dave, my friend who lived on the first floor of Humboldt, had a man-crush on Mark Bortz from day one of freshman year. He had already created the "Bortz Boys" with our friends Krispy and Gus. It was just assumed that Dave's "GS" was Bortz.

Marco, one of the "Original Six," chose Yassin Idbihi partly because he wasn't Bortz. The big reason, though, was because Marco was a year younger than us and came in the same year as "The Dream." Being able to grow year-to-year with his godson and eventually graduate with him was a big reason for the selection.

My friend Aaron dubbed Jason Bird as his godson. And me, well, I chose mine because I saw a similarity between him and me. My godson was Brian Andre. What better godson for a big, doofy white guy than a bigger, doofier white guy?

You'll notice that no one chose Turner Battle. It was a rule. Turner couldn't be anyone's godson because Turner was everyone's godson.

In the first and second rows of section 111, the relationship grew. Every time a godson scored, everyone else slapped the back of the proud godparent. For our friend Jay Dennie, who chose Calvin Cage, each game equated to a back-alley beating.

Over the last three years, my friends and I have watched our godsons evolve and improve and develop their games. We stormed the court when they knocked off Kent State and Northern Illinois, and collapsed when they fell just short of a conference title.

We'll always remember their senior nights. Everyone chanted their names, but not everyone had the relationship with them that we did. Whether they even knew what we thought of them is irrelevant. We knew what they meant to UB and to our college careers.

Why the special bond, the special name? Maybe it's because even though they were Division I athletes, it never seemed like it to us. Calling Brian Andre my godson made it easier to relate to him. It was a connection that no one knew about, and that made it all the more important.

Unfortunately, everyone graduates and everyone except Marco has had to say goodbye to their godson, and been forced to pick a new one. When Andre transferred, I was left a bit confused. I could have picked the big, doofy incoming freshman from Russia named Vadim, but I chose Sean Smiley. At first I picked him because he was a white kid who was in Sports Illustrated for dunking in high school, but as he played, I fell in love with his game and his shooting touch. I always wanted to be the shooter, but alas, my athletic ineptitudes rendered that impossible.

Dave's moved on to Greg Gamble and Aaron to Andy Robinson. Marco's sticking with Yassin until graduation and Bane transferred the same year as J.B. graduated. Chris, though, is finding it harder to pick a new one.

It's never easy to find a new connection with a player just because you need a new godson. This is more important than just stats. This is about picking a player that you can call your own.