RF1

The only way UMass gets an invite to the AAC is if UConn finds a new home. UConn will not allow an invite to UMass as long as it is a member. The problem for UMass however is the AAC is far less attractive an option if there is no UConn. The closest schools would be Temple, East Carolina, and Cincinnati (who want out bad). Most of the AAC is in the region bounded by NC, FL, OK and TX. It would be very expensive travel wise for the non revenue sports of UMass and the league would not be a power in either of the two high profile sports of football and hoops. Losing Louisville was a big blow on two fronts and losing UConn or Cincinnati down the road would be another massive hit. Current AAC members UConn Temple Cincinnati ECU USF UCF Tulane Memphis Houston SMU Tulsa Navy (football only)

Providence doesn't field a team in America's pastime as it has no baseball team. No football as well. They do however play that most Canadian sport, hockey, as they have both men's and women's D1 teams.

The eastern most A-10 member, Rhode Island, loves to play the western most members (SLU and Dayton). Perhaps it will be one of the home and homes.

They might want to stay away from certain seafood such as Upper Narragansettt Bay quahogs.

They are probably landing at TF Green in Warwick which is the commericial Providence airport. Depending on their charter plane, Newport might be too small. Other possibility is to land at Quonset (was formerly the airfield for Navy Aircraft Carrier base pre 1973). Quonset, located in North Kingstown. is in the next town over from the URI campus.

They won't have an issue landing in RI today. A warm front with rain came through last night into today. Temps went from below freezing to near 60. Your Sunday/Monday temps are then expected to move in tomorrow for several days of severe cold. Don't know where SLU is staying. They could have issues if they stay in Newport, as many opponents do, as they have to cross two long bridges (each approx 2miles long) to get across Narragansett Bay to the URI campus in Kingston. The bridges sometimes have restrictions with high winds and severe cold. If they stay near the airport or campus, there should be no weather travel issues as no precip is expected later this week.

Jordan tweeted the following today: Tough week for me. Taking care of my Family and Academic Responsibilities. Looking forward to reuniting with my team. https://twitter.com/HareJordan4/status/397479094503235584 The possibility of him returning (at least in his view) is still out there. It however is a very fluid situation and nothing is certain at this point.

Hare actually committed to URI when Baron was still head coach. Hurley just had to keep him in the fold. Hare has lots of potential and has shown flashes but his work ethic and focus (has personal off court issues) have been issues. He supposedly played well on trip to Italy and many thought was much improved from last year. Not a great way for Rhody to start off its season. Makes you wonder what URI could have been if Holton and Hare didn't have problems and had stayed in Kingston.

Here is some more perspective for you. How many of the teams you list ahead of the Red Sox were in the same division/league as the perrenial WS Champion New York Yankees for the last 100 years directly fighting them for a playoff berth? How many regular season games do they play vs the NYY every year (which in turn factors into the sos and record).

Per ESPN's Andy Katz: New Big East commissioner Val Ackerman said the conference is set at 10. If this conference is going to be all about basketball then 10 is the magic number. The Big 12 is finding out what the Pac-12 (then the Pac-10) knew for years. Having a true round-robin makes for the most equitable conference season and ultimate champion. The new Big East doesn't need anymore of the A-10 schools to be solvent. They have enough of the market place and would not benefit much from adding more schools simply to get more teams in the tournament. There is not even guarantee that would occur. The most pressing moves Ackerman has to do in the coming weeks -- outside of visiting every school -- is to hire a staff, find rental space in New York City and finalize a difficult schedule because of the pro-arena conflicts for many of the teams. http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/85875/3-point-shot-10-is-right-for-new-big-east

The new Catholic Big East is also being called mid-major by sports media.

Forget Amherst. UMASS will be playing all its "home" football games for the next few years at the NE Patriots Gillette Stadium, It is located some 90-100 miles from the UMass campus in Amherst and is about a 2hr drive.

You are correct. The Fordham Football Stadium only has seating on one sideline as the baseball outfield encompasses most of the football playing field. Being in such a densely populated city like NYC, land is a scarce resource. Go to Google maps and search on Jack Coffey Field Bronx, NY in sattelite mode and you can see the configuarion https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en

As someone living in the east, believ me when I say Robbin's article has little merit. There is no way that schools such as UNH and Richmond are looking to go FBS/1A in football. Neither school has the facilities nor will for such a move. UNH also doesn't have the financial resources to ever consider such a move. Robbins musings are a pipedream. There are only a few eastern teams that could realitically consider a move up - Old Dominion, James Madison, and Delaware. They are not enough to start their own league.

These OOC Tournaments often times never deliver the initial promise. Just hope that they don't have to try to fill out the field late with a non D1 school (this happens more than you would think. At any rate, any potential game with Kansas is good. While it is in their backyard, it is not too bad for SLU as you will probably be the next most respesented school fan wise. Rhode Island will be in a similar format tournament next season as it will participate in the Naismith Hall of Fame Tournament. It will be one of the four hosts along with Ohio State, Washington, and Seton Hall. The other teams are Loyola University Maryland (MAAC), Norfolk State University (MEAC), University of Albany (America East), University of Missouri-Kansas City (Summit League). URI will host two of the four non-hosts and then meet two of the hosts at the neutral site Mohegan Sun Arena which is just 30 miles from the URI campus. Early word is that URI will play its first game at the Sun against Ohio State. http://www.hoophall....for-2012-t.html

RI beating Dayton has inexplicably become a somewhat common occurrence. URI has won the last five games in the series, seven of the last eight, and even four out of the last five at UD Arena. This win however was probably the least expected.

Rhode Island just announced its TV schedule and the game in Kingston vs St Louis will be produced by CBS-R (regional). It is not a national game. The cable provider in RI (Cox) will air it locally. SLU would likely need to have a local outlet pick it up for you to see it. Unfortunately for A-10 schools to get on tv often, they must have their own tv partner arrangements such as URI with Cox (or Xavier with Fox Sports-OH and Dayton with WHIO/Fox Sports-OH). Unfortunately, the audience for the most part is limited to just the local area. Record Television Schedule Set for 2011-12 Men's Basketball Season http://www.gorhody.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/110211aaa.html Rhode Island TV Schedule Link http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/uri/sports/m-baskbl/auto_pdf/2011-12/schedule/schedule.pdf

Most A-10 teams, save Xavier and Temple, are having a tough time scheduling, particularly home games. St. Bonaventure is actually still looking for two games at this date. That is why I think it makes sense for the A-10 to increase the league schedule from 16 to 18 games. Play an equal number of home and away versus eight A-10 members and play the other five A-10 teams home and home.

Fordham has been in the A-10 since the 1995-96 season and little has changed. They were on the bottom then and are on the bottom now and it has been that way most seasons. Fordham has yet to make a single post season appearance since joining the league. This includes the newer and less selective CBI and CIT tourneys as well as the NCAA and NIT. The Rams have had several different coaches as an A-10 member - Nick M, Bob Hill, Dereck Whittenburg, and now Tom Pecora. There were some glimmers of hope under previous coaches but they were never able to turn things around and got forced out. I am not so certain Pecora will be any different. One win over last season's very erratic St. John's team (had wins over big names such as Duke but lost at home to St. Bonaventure and at Fordham) does not make a turn around. Fordham has several impediments to becoming an A-10 power. It has a very small fanbase, antiquated facilities, gets little media, and is bascially lost trying to compete in such a large city with so many entertainment options. It may never be able to rise above these to become a consistent winner

If the A-10 has to rely on Fordham and its "fans" to make this work, the league is screwed.

Keep in mind that UConn made the jump directly to a BCS football league and its associated TV exposure and revenues. UConn also had very successful men's and women's basketball programs that had won national championships and the school was very much supported throughout the state (there are no pro sports in CT and it is between the Boston and NY markets not belonging in total to either). The state of CT got behind the football move and built them a stadium to make it happen. UMass is joining the MAC. It will play Bowling Green, Eastern Mich, Central Mich, Akron, etc...The school is not well supported in the state from a financial standpoint or resident/fan support. It intends to play its MAC games at the 68,000 seat Gillette Stadium (home of the NE Patriots) some two hours from its campus. Its road will be much more difficult than UConn.

I was at that game. It was played at the DCU Center in Worcester, MA. I had gotten tickets for my SU alum brother and he wasn't too pleased with the result. It however was a great 1st round as half the 8 teams in Worcester had won at least one national championship (NC State, Michigan State, UConn, and Syracuse). Vermont has dominated the America East regular seasons as late. They made the NIT last year by virtue of winning the regular season and failing to win the AE Tournament for the NCAA auto bid. Is this a one shot buy game or is there some sort of return?

St Louis has an excellent shot Tuesday. URI has been horrible at home in league play going just 4-4. They lost their last two Ryan Center games to UMass and GW. They were blown out by Xavier and even lost to LaSalle. Rhody struggled in all four of its A-10 home wins having to score the last 7 points to eek out a 1 point win over SBU, trailed at the half to Fordham, and had to come back from double digits down to defeat Dayton and Charlotte. Inexplicably URI was 5-3 on the road in A-10 play winning at Richmond and Duquense. URI fans are fairly down on the program and coach. There were chants of "FIRE BARON" at the end of the UMass loss. While Coach Baron helped bring back the program after a disastrous two year period, he has seemingly stalled as he cannot get it to the next level (NCAA). While five NIT appearances in eight years with a semi-final run were nice, fans want more. Given there are no preaseason sales (like season tickets) and just a few days to sell tickets, I would imagine a relatively small crowd. I believe this will be Rick's first visit to Kingston. He did not make the only other game during his tenure as his girlfriend had been involved in an accident just prior to the trip. For some strange reason, URI always seems to play at SLU. If he likes seafood, there are plenty of food options as the school is located in a town that is on the Atlantic Ocean. The Rhody campus is in a rural area located just miles from the coast is nearly midway between Boston and NYC.

There are some Rhody fans that call the Ryan Center "the Pharm". The main benefactors were alumnus Tom Ryan and the CVS Pharmacy chain headquartered in RI and where Ryan is CEO and Chairman of the Board. The Ryan Center floor has CVS logos prominently displayed. One of URI's better known disciplines is its School of Pharmacy. The school also was founded as a land grant agricultural institute so farm (or its homophone pharm) works in that regard as well. The other main arena in RI is the Dunkin Donuts Center (DDC) located in downtown Providence. It is named after the coffee/donuts chain of which RI has more locations per capita than any other state and is headquartered about 30 miles north of the city in nearby MA. The state owned and operated venue is used by a variety of tenants, chief among them the Providence Bruins minor league hockey team of the AHL and the Providence College Friars NCAA basketball program. The nickname for the DDC is the DUNK which ties in to PC hoops.

How appropriate for the opponent. URI is the state university for the Ocean State and is located in a town that has the Atlantic Ocean as it southern boundary. The school has a world class oceanography school that the man who located the Titantic (Robert Ballard) is both a graduate and current professor. The URI campus is just miles from the coast and surf magazines rate it as one of the best surf colleges in the US. Surfline top surfing colleges: URI #7 Surf College in USA http://www.surfline.com/surf-news/official-guide-to-surf-colleges-at-the-beach_25098/