BUFFALO, N.Y. – When Buffalo coach Nate Oats' team upset Syracuse in the Carrier Dome earlier this year, he acted like there was nothing to be surprised about. He declared postgame that Buffalo had "better players," a "better team" and they "play harder." When No. 13 seed Buffalo stomped No. 4 Arizona in the NCAA tournament last season, Oats declared he'd gotten sick of "soft" Pac-12 teams failing to pressure the ball on game film.

His old boss at Buffalo, Arizona State's Bobby Hurley, told him the remark irked Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott. "But you know what?" he told Yahoo Sports in his office recently. "They're worse this year than last year. Did I lie? Did I lie? I told the truth."

Oats, 44, has emerged as the runaway coaching star in college basketball this season. With Buffalo (29-3) poised to set the modern record for NCAA tournament seeding by a team from the MAC, Oats has built the runaway best team in program history. The twin storylines of underdog coach and the improbable power he's built – No. 18 Buffalo has been ranked for 18 consecutive weeks – have Buffalo poised to be March's most improbable story.

Less than six years ago, Oats was teaching five math classes a day – algebra, geometry and statistics – at Romulus High School in Michigan. He sold Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, Capri Suns and Pop-Tarts out of his office to fundraise for his basketball program and in 11 seasons transformed the school into a state and national power.

In his fourth season as the head coach at Buffalo, Oats is headed to his third NCAA tournament and has managed to turn a school with little basketball tradition into, well, a state and national power. He's 93-42 over four seasons and delivered the school's first NCAA win over Arizona last season. With four seniors among their five leading scorers – including star CJ Massinburg (18.5 ppg) – they're poised to make more noise.

It doesn't add up, right? The former math teacher with a star player they beat out Prairie View A&M for in recruiting. No. 18 Buffalo's season is a tomahawk dunk that posterizes some of the sport's longtime conventions, a delicious anomaly of the unexpected, unfiltered and unflinching.

The Bulls have taken on the blunt-force personality of their coach, an indomitable combination of man-to-man defense and blue-collar attitude that no one would be surprised to see in the Sweet 16. Or beyond.

"He's a straight shooter, there's very little filter with Nate," said Arizona State Bobby Hurley, who hired him as an assistant at Buffalo in 2013. "There's almost a naïve youthfulness, as he just has a natural joy for the game of basketball."

Oats' creative fundraising

Oats is a former Division III point guard, the son of a theology professor whose background is more cafeteria-issued sporks than silver spoons. He served as an assistant at his alma mater, Maranatha Baptist, and then Wisconsin-Whitewater before his big break at Romulus, which came partly because his ability to teach math and coach appealed to the school.

He turned around Romulus at age 27 the same way he overhauled Buffalo. Romulus soon began running like a college program – 6 a.m. workouts, study tables, strength training, speed training, academic advisers and daily film sessions. "When people ask me how much harder is it in Division I," Oats said, "I'm like, 'It was harder back at Romulus.'"

Regardless of how Buffalo finishes this season – and a MAC tournament title could vault them as high as a No. 4 seed in the NCAA tournament – Oats has positioned himself at the top of everyone's hot-coach list.

When Oats arrived at Romulus in 2002 the program had $78 in the fundraising account. In the final game of his debut season, they scored 35 points.

Oats' teams won a state title in 2013, earned USA Today Top 25 rankings in three different seasons and went to five state Final Fours. Oats also produced 18 Division I players, seeing enough college assistants come through his gym that he quickly realized he could do their job better.

By the time Oats left for Buffalo, he'd raised enough money for the team to have six shooting guns for skill development – the kind found in college and NBA practice facilities. Romulus had such a robust army of managers that it took Buffalo years to catch up to that level. The program held such cache in the Detroit area that families were moving into the district to play there.

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