Thursday Thoughts - First they mock you and then they copy you!

Putting aside the ever-present schism among the UB fanbase regarding the New York Bulls Initiative something funny is happening among the other parties which will be effected by how well UB does.

This does not make you a NY team

First of course was the mockery from Syracuse, whose "New York's Team" was aimed solely at the City and Saint John's. They never really put out a full-throated cry to the entire state. It was a marketing gimmick by a private school trying to pretend it was the "State's School".

Slapping your name on a few taxi cabs in New York City is not exactly the steps someone who wants to represent the entire Empire State would lead with.

UB's focus has been on coverage throughout the state. Treating our football camps in Albany the same as the camps the school is putting on in the Bronx.

Eventually even our fellow SBNation site "Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician" realized that the school maybe needed to try to copy UB's efforts and cast a wider net.

Among our fellow SUNY institutions, especially the three other University Centers, the reaction was not derision but disgust.

"How dare the largest, most well-endowed school in the state of New York try to pick up the mantle of athletics flagship? Who care's if they are the only FBS team, or the school which all alone fought the battle to make Division One athletics possible in the SUNY system"

Bingo is a great undergrad school while smAlbany and Stony Brook are tearing up the NEC/America East. So all three balked at the suggestion, pretending that UB was being childish and silly.

The other centers were, of course, beyond such delusions of grandeur. Or are they?

I'm still waiting for Albany and Bingo to throw out their "We're New York's Team" shirt, but you know its coming.

If you're from Syracuse or another SUNY center here is why you are *NOT* NY's team.

Syracuse - You're not a State School. You are no doubt the best funded ans historically most accomplished department in the state but you are a private school. You can no more be NY's team than Northwestern can be Illinois' team or Baylor/TCU will be Texas' team.

Albany - You've shrunk by almost 1,000 students over the last half decade or so. Your vast athletic accomplishments are in the America East where only *one* school produces a sub-100 RPI in basketball. Lacrosse is nice, but roughly the same as hockey in membership and worse in disparity at the NCAA level.

Binghamton - You are just starting to spin up a medical school and a larger graduate footprint. Who knows; in 50 years your graduate programs might be where UB is *TODAY*. In the mean time be content with who you are. You are a great undergrad school.

Stony Brook - Of all the centers I respect you the most but- We are still twice your size in terms of endowment and UB constantly is the institution which drags SUNY kicking and screaming to a better tomorrow. While Stony Brook has done the most of the other three centers towards improving themselves they are still nibbling at the scraps UB drops as *WE* fight for things like D1 Athletics or center autonomy.

Though I tip my hat to the Burnsian way Stony Brook tried to funnel state funds earmarked towards a new school to your athletic facilities.