ALBANY, NY – The University at Buffalo women’s basketball team erased a late two-point deficit, forcing overtime, and walking away with a 70-69 overtime victory, Wednesday night at the SEFCU Arena. The victory snapped a streak of five straight overtime losses and was UB’s first victory in the extra session since the 2002-03 season. The Bulls also improved to 5-3 on the season with the win.

The Bulls came out firing in the first half as they shot 58.6 percent during the opening 20 minutes. Freshman Jessica Fortman (Ashland, KY/Russell) scored 16 of her career-high 19 points in the first half, including two of her three three-pointers. The Bulls led by as many as 16 points in the opening half as they opened a 28-12 advantage on a three pointer from Stephanie Bennett (Springfield, OH/Kenton Ridge) at the 10:53 mark. Albany would fight back and cut the UB lead to as little as six before the Bulls took an eight-point lead into the half at 40-32.

Check out Peter and Andrew’s Live blog recap of last nights 4-1 loss to the Ducks.

For the first time ever, we attended two NBA basketball games on the same day… in the same venue no less.

There was lots going on in the sports world in L.A. on day 2 of our journey… USC was hosting Kansas in mens basketball at the new Galen Center, while UCLA was hosting Texas at Pauley Pavilion, a game which Andrew was lobbying to go see.

But in the end we wound up spending the day downtown at the Staples Center, where the headline game that evening was the Los Angeles Lakers hosting the Orlando Magic.

First up at Staples would be the JV game featuring the Indiana Pacers and Los Angeles Clippers.

As you may know, there’s a big to-do in the hockey blogosphere about blogger access to the press box. I’ll write more about that, and the piece that aired on Hockey Night in Canada, at a later point. I swear, I must have started a dozen different posts over the past year about how bloggers should have regular access to the press box (note: I do not want that for myself), but I have always canned them because I think the topic of bloggers writing about bloggers who want to blog is, well, I don’t know. It’s just not me.

Much of the conversation from the blogger end is that “we” can actually be more critical of the local team than “them” - those writers whose papers are owned by companies which interact with companies owned by the owner of the hockey team. Got that? If not, read it again.

Here in Buffalo, that’s clearly not the case. In fact, I would think that - my stunning good looks aside - much of this site’s popularity is due to the fact I am usually in direct opposition to the negative and downright destructive commentary of Bucky Gleason and Jerry Sullivan. (Although Jerry has been like a mouse of late. Maybe he’s worried about Santa screwing him this year.)

Memo to anyone who complained about the increase in parking prices at The Ralph this year (myself included) - kwitcherbitching and just pony up the cash.

We arrived around 11 AM, and as we were making our rounds and checking out the tailgate and party scene at the LA Coliseum, we came across a parking lot that was charging $60. Our eyes bugged out a bit, but as our walk continued, we spotted another charging $80! And another, and another. Finally, we came across THIS, and $60 seemed… soooooooo 11:30.

Note… that was not a VIP lot, that was still a bit of a walk to the stadium, and was just the run of the mill parking lot behind a gas station in a neighborhood.