After becoming just the third team in league history to win back-to-back Mid-American Conference Tournament Championships, the UB Bulls are hoping to take their title quest one step further this season, and become the first program to ever three-peat.
"I would like to make history here and get three in a row," Head Coach Nate Oats told the media on Tuesday.
"We've talked to our guys about it, but we're not going to harp on it. We're going to start talking about what we need to do every single day to get better that day."
"We are thinking about that because we do want to three-peat," CJ Massinburg added. "Some people are counting us out, this year again. They've picked up third in the MAC and we feel like we should be first in the MAC."
UB, which was picked to finish 4th in the East Division in each of the last two years, is no stranger to being viewed as underdogs.
"It feeds us," Blake Hamilton said. "In my two years here we've been an under the radar team and nobody had much faith in us. For us to win the MAC and to have most of our pieces coming back and not to be predicted the favorites, for me, it's going to fuel the fire. We can't take anybody lightly."
The Bulls return nine members from their NCAA Tournament team a year ago, including Hamilton who hit the game-winning 3-pointer against Akron with 1.8 seconds left in the game.
With an international exhibition schedule in August, which included games against teams in Canada and the Bahamas, the Bulls feel they're all ready a leg up in their quest to return to the Big Dance.
"It was great," Hamilton said. "Our whole team was here during the foreign trip. We got 10 practices under our belt so we're all ready ahead in the game than most teams right now. We're just looking forward to the season to start."
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