University of North Carolina Ashville Athletics
Mike Gore's "40-for-40": When Buffalo Came to Asheville
01.08.2026 | General, Men's Basketball
Last month, the men's basketball team welcomed a very good opponent from the Mid-American Conference in Miami of Ohio. The Bulldogs took the still unbeaten Red Hawks to overtime before falling 90-87.
It was not the first time a team from the MAC had come to Asheville with a good record and gone to overtime with the Bulldogs.
Back in December of 2007, UNC Asheville played its first-ever opponent from the MAC when the Buffalo Bulls came to play in the Justice Center.
They were a good and physical team that had posted some outstanding wins in the early part of the season. It was going to be an excellent test for a talented Bulldog team that was in the midst of a record-setting season.
And the game would go overtime with some real fireworks going on after the game.
As you may or may not know, I am a proud native of Buffalo, New York. My family and I moved to North Carolina in 1977 when I was 15. Playing a game against Buffalo or UB as it's known was a little extra special for me. I have uncles, aunts and cousins that attended UB. I'm not sure some of them knew what I did for a living and where I was working, but the next day they would know I worked at UNC Asheville.
The game was played on December 29th and we were having a very good start to the season. We had two fifth-year senior guards in Bryan Smithson and KJ Garland who would later go on to be first-team All-Conference selections. We had an exciting freshman forward named John Williams who was 6-1 but played like he was seven feet tall.
And speaking of height we also had the tallest player in college basketball in 7-7 center Kenny George. Kenny had been with us for two years before making his debut the previous season and the big man only got better as the season progressed. Asheville made a great run at the end of the season before falling to a great Winthrop squad in the semifinals of the 2007 Big South Tournament. That same Eagle squad would knock off Notre Dame in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Kenny was a key player for the Bulldogs. At the time of the Buffalo game, he was leading the nation in blocked shots and field goal percentage. Opponents had to play a certain way when Kenny was in the game and a different way when he was out of the game. He would figure immensely in this contest.
His success had also brought the nation's media attention and for a few days a reporter from the New York Times would interview Kenny, and she would cover this game against Buffalo. Later in January, ESPN would spend a few days with Kenny and he would be featured on ESPN's Gameday.
The game didn't start out well for the Bulldogs as a physical UB team seemed to score at will against Asheville. UB would build the lead to 15 in the first half before settling for a 42-33 halftime lead.
In the second half, once again the Bulls would build the lead to 15 before the Bulldogs began to rally around George. UB had no answer to stop Kenny and before the game was over, he would score a career-high 21 points. He would also grab 10 rebounds and block six shots.
The Bulldogs' comeback was being helped by fouls and getting to the charity stripe. Smithson was especially tough to stop and would nail seven free throws in the final 10 minutes of regulation. The Dogs would tie the game at 80-80 and send the game to overtime.
In the overtime, George scored six points on tap-ins and Smithson hit some more free throws as Asheville would roll to a 101-90 victory. The Dogs would get a dunk from Smithson at the buzzer.
One of the keys to Asheville's win was free throws. Eddie Biedenbach's team went 32-of-49, while Buffalo was just 6-of-9.
That statistic did not make Buffalo coach Reggie Witherspoon very happy. He wasn't happy about it during the game and as the game ended, the Bulls coach decided to let the three Big South officials know his thoughts on their performance. As the horn sounded, Reggie made a straight beeline to the officials.
As I said earlier, I am a native of Buffalo and knew about Reggie from living up there and following his high school playing career and eventually his college coaching career. He had built a good program at Buffalo after inheriting a team that had threatened a mutiny with the previous coach.
The previous day, I had been at the Justice Center to meet the New York Times reporter who was interviewing Kenny. And while that interview was going on, UB's team had come into practice. I introduced myself to Reggie and the two of us talked for the next hour about Buffalo, people we both knew, the Buffalo Bills, chicken wings, pizza, and a little basketball. He couldn't have been nicer.
But when he went toward the officials, I knew he wasn't going to be discussing how good the pizza is in Buffalo. And as part of game management, I raced over to try and intercept him and prevent something from getting out-of-hand.
Reggie wasn't pleased to see me and he wasn't thrilled that I had grabbed him and was preventing him from getting closer to the officials. I didn't listen to him because I didn't want him to do something he might regret later. I slowly pushed him back, let him say what he wanted to say but not get too close to the officials. Thankfully, the officials quickly went into their dressing room and I was able to let Reggie go.
I thought that was the end of it but I was wrong. Asheville Citizen-Times photographer Steve Dixon had produced a wonderful photo of me grabbing Reggie and pushing him back. And WLOS captured it on film as well.
The next day that wonderful photo would be on the front page of the sports section of the Citizen-Times and Buffalo News. And the video had made it to two different Buffalo TV stations.
Suddenly my extended family in Buffalo, who never quite understood what a Sports Information Director did, saw me in action. I tried to tell them that this was a unique situation that didn't happen every home basketball game.
And my SID colleagues chipped in, as well. Mark Simpson, the awesome PR Director of the Big South, sent the photo to all my colleagues in the league. I heard from about everybody, including the schools that had football. John Martin at Coastal Carolina informed me that I had made a perfect tackle. Todd Wetmore at Liberty wished the Flames football team would take lessons from me in the proper tackling technique. He told me he would hide the photo from the Liberty football coaching staff because they might try and see if I had any eligibility left.
I was a little embarrassed. As an SID, you never want to be part of a story. You want to promote stories about your players and coaches but you never want to have a story to be about you.
Thankfully, there were no hard feeling from Reggie for me "tackling" him. We talked for awhile after the game, once again discussing our favorite pizza restaurant in Buffalo and the status of the Bills.
It was a game that really helped our team. We found out we could be physical if we needed to be. The Bulldogs went on to win the Big South Conference regular-season title with two wins over Winthrop, including a season-ending victory over the Eagles in Rock Hill that sealed the title. One reason we won both games against Winthrop was we matched their toughness.
And for me, it was a game I would never forget. I heard from relatives I hadn't heard from in a while. They now know about UNC Asheville. Kenny George would have a huge feature on him in the New York Times the following week. And I still hear about my perfect "tackle" 18 years later.
