The year in sports: Terry Pegula is at the center of the action in 2024
Here's a Terry Pegula-tinged recap of the top stories in Buffalo sports for 2024.
Everything in Buffalo sports in 2024 seemed to revolve around Terry Pegula. What a wild year. Consider this list of his activities:
- The Bills again harbor Super Bowl dreams, Josh Allen seems like a sure bet to be MVP of the NFL and the new Highmark Stadium is rising triumphantly across Abbott Road from the current stadium the Bills have called home since 1973. Of course, the cost is going up as well and Pegula is on the hook for overruns on a facility now pegged to cost $2.1 billion.
- Pegula sold 20% of the Bills earlier this month to a group of investors, notably highlighted by former NBA stars Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady and former Major League Soccer standout Jozy Altidore.
- Pegula’s daughter, Jessica, increased her profile as one of the dominant Americans in women’s tennis by making her first Grand Slam final in advancing to the last match of the U.S. Open before losing to Aryna Sabalenka.
- The Bandits, Pegula’s entry in the National Lacrosse League, won their second straight league championship and will raise their banner in KeyBank Center on Saturday night prior to their home opener against Rochester.
- Then there’s Pegula’s hockey team. Woo boy. They don’t raise title banners. The Sabres had have a disastrous December, falling to last place in the NHL thanks to a 13-game winless streak. Criticism of Pegula and general manager Kevyn Adams is fierce as the franchise is on the way to a 14th straight season out of the playoffs, extending its own NHL record and the second-worst drought in the four major sports to the New York Jets.
1. Bills championship window remains wide open: The 2023 season actually ended on Jan. 21, 2024, with a 27-24 loss to Kansas City in Highmark Stadium as the Bills failed to take advantage of finally getting Patrick Mahomes & Co. at home in the postseason. Expectations for 2024 dropped as the front office retooled the team, including a trade of star wide receiver Stefon Diggs to Houston on April 3, but a fifth straight AFC East title still seemed plausible.
The club was 3-2 through five games after losing to Diggs’ Texans, 23-20, on Oct. 6. But Allen then grabbed the favorite’s mantle in the MVP race during a seven-game win streak that included a victory over Kansas City in Orchard Park. The Bills are 12-3 as they aim for a return to the Super Bowl for the first time since 1994.
2. Sabres rehire Lindy Ruff but winless streak keeps grip on franchise: The moribund franchise cycled through yet another head coach when it fired Don Granato on April 16 after a 39-37-6 season. Six days later, Ruff was rehired to a run the team that had let him go in 2013. The Sabres trumpeted Ruff’s hiring hard in the offseason, started 0-3 but had a huge turnaround with an 11-6-1 burst that included the team’s first three-game sweep of a California trip. That put Buffalo into third place in the Atlantic Division heading into Thanksgiving week.
But now everything has changed: The team was last in the NHL’s overall standings until Monday’s 7-1 win on Long Island snapped their winless streak. A blown 4-0 lead Dec. 3 against Colorado – a first in franchise history – has seemingly set the season ablaze and not even a visit from Pegula in Montreal last week shook the team from its doldrums.
3. Bandits go back to back: The franchise’s 15-year title drought in the National Lacrosse League ended in 2023 when the Bandits beat Colorado in the best-of-three final. Another exciting season in 2024 culminated with a two-game sweep of the Albany Firebirds, as a 15-13 victory on May 18 before a roaring KeyBank Center crowd gave the Bandits their first back-to-back titles since 1992-93.
Forward Josh Byrne, whose overtime goal against Georgia allowed the Bandits to survive the single-elimination quarterfinals, earned league MVP honors after a 135-point season, and he was named Finals MVP after posting 16 points in the two games.
4. Jessica Pegula makes final at Flushing Meadows: In her age-30 season, Pegula cashed $4.1 million in prize money, earned victories in the Berlin Open and Canadian Open, and ended the season ranked seventh in the world and second among American players. Unquestionably her biggest moment came at the U.S. Open in Queens, where she finally reached her first Grand Slam final after defeating world No. 1 Iga Świątek, 6-2, 6-4, in the quarterfinals and rallying past Karolína Muchová, 1-6, 6-4, 6-2, in the semifinals.
Pegula’s trip to the Open final on Sept. 7 was the biggest moment for a Western New Yorker in the tennis world since Grand Island’s Jimmy Arias made the Open men’s semis at 1983. But her run ended one win short of a title with a 7-5, 7-5 defeat at the hands of No. 2 Sabalenka.
5. UB football goes bowling behind new coach and All-America linebacker: After head coach Maurice Linguist resigned on Jan. 16 to take a position as an assistant coach at Alabama, the University at Buffalo replaced him five days later with South Carolina special teams coach Pete Lembo, who had spent five years as the head man at MAC rival Ball State.
Lembo’s first UB team has gone 8-4 and earned a spot in the Bahamas Bowl on Jan. 4 against Liberty. Linebacker Shaun Dolac, a West Seneca East graduate, has compiled the greatest season by a defender in school history in earning consensus All-America honors.
6. A WojBomb at Bona: With NIL becoming a major factor in college recruiting, St. Bonaventure men’s basketball made national news that rocked the media world on Sept. 18 with the announcement that 1991 alum Adrian Wojnarowski would retire from his role as ESPN’s NBA insider and become general manager of his beloved Bonnies program. Wojnarowski immediately embarked on a fundraising and publicity campaign to raise awareness and donations, while coach Mark Schmidt did his thing, starting the season 12-1 for the first time since the 1969-70 Final Four campaign.
7. Medal moments in the Paris pool, on the volleyball court: Kenmore West product Anita Alvarez made her third Olympics a charm by taking a silver medal in artistic swimming, as the eight-person Team USA entry medaled for the first time in 20 years. In what could be the Olympic swan song for 37-year-old Matt Anderson of West Seneca, the men’s volleyball team suffered a heartbreaking semifinal loss to Poland before beating Italy to earn the bronze. It was the second bronze in Anderson’s four Olympics.
8. Timon’s top tiger breaks WNY hoop scoring mark: Bishop Timon-St. Jude’s Jaiden Harrison used a rivalry game on Feb. 16 at Canisius to set the all-time scoring record for Western New York high school basketball, breaking the mark of Cheektowaga’s Dominick Welch (2,376). Harrison, who played the final three years of his high school career at Timon, had 1,643 points there to finish his career at 2,478. He was named Allen Wilson WNY Player of the Year by The Buffalo News and New York State Class AA player of the year.
9. Joey Votto retires from MLB in midst of stint with Bisons: The longtime Cincinnati Reds first baseman and Toronto native signed a minor-league deal with the Blue Jays, hoping to get to Toronto and continue a borderline Hall of Fame career that included 2,135 hits. But a severe ankle injury in spring training prevented him from getting to the Bisons until July. Votto played 15 games for the Herd, batting just .143 and striking out 22 times in 42 at-bats. He announced his retirement following an Aug. 21 Bisons matinee in an eight-second video he posted from the back parking lot of Sahlen Field. Said Votto: “That’s it. I’m done. I am officially retired from baseball.”
10. Changes on the sideline at Canisius University: The Griffs switched out both basketball coaches, with one expected and one being a surprise. The contract of veteran men’s coach Reggie Witherspoon was not renewed on March 16 after eight seasons, the last one ending with a 14-18 record. He was replaced by former veteran Jim Christian, who has had runs as a head man at Kent State, TCU and Boston College. Women’s coach Sahar Nusseibeh put together a 17-win season and got the Griffs into the semifinals of the MAAC Tournament for the first time since 2009 before leaving for Eastern Michigan and taking many of the program’s top players with her. She was replaced by Penn State assistant Tiffany Swoffard. The new coaches have struggled mightily, going a combined 1-23 thus far. Christian’s team (0-13) endured an embarrassing 108-37 loss at Maryland that is the worst in Big 4 history.
