University at Buffalo - The State University of New York

UB’s first basketball teams

Members of the 1916-17 UB basketball team: (top row) G. Hawn, Coach Powell, C. Roberts, Manager E. Flentz, F. Savage; (middle row) G. Siegel and F. Ungerer; and (bottom row) E. Burns, Captain H. Scott and G. Levin. Photo: UB ARCHIVES

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Published: February 3, 2010

The UB men’s basketball team, which is well into its Mid-American Conference schedule, is the current manifestation of more than 100 years of hoops at the university. The first non-sanctioned basketball team with a formal schedule hit the courts in 1906-07 with noteworthy success, winning six games and losing just two contests. The team was victorious over Cornell, Niagara, Genessee, Alfred, Dickinson and Bloomsbury. The recorded scores dramatically illustrate how basketball has changed in a century: for example, UB 22, Cornell 19 and UB 36, Niagara 9.

UB’s first officially sanctioned basketball team was formed in 1915-16. The small group of student-athletes was captained by Eddie Burns (Dr. Ed Burns of Glen Falls, following graduation) and practiced in the gymnasium of the Buffalo Turn Verein, a social/cultural club established by the German-American Workingman’s Association and located at 385-387 Ellicott St., Buffalo. The team won seven of its 11 intercollegiate contests.

The photo shown here—from the 1917 Reflector, the UB dental school yearbook—is of the 1916-17 team that took to the courts against such major teams as Yale, Pittsburgh, Michigan and Carnegie Tech. The team’s overall record was six wins and eight losses.

Hired in 1915 as UB’s first official basketball coach, Arthur Powell achieved legendary stature. His hiring coincided with the 1915 formation of the University of Buffalo Athletic Association, with an official “constitution” and plans to field teams in football, baseball, basketball and track. Powell was esteemed for insisting on “gentlemanly athletes, who play a hard clean game.” Under his long-term leadership (officially on part-time status), the team achieved recognized success. In 1919-20, UB won nine games and lost only once. The 1926-27 season was marked by a win against Penn State in three overtimes. Powell also saw the opening of Clark Memorial Gym in 1938, when for the first time, varsity basketball could practice and play on the same court.

—Judith Adams-Volpe, University Libraries