RF1

Yes. Coach Majerus loves seafood. The URI campus in Kingston is just miles from the Atlantic Ocean.

Or Lamar Odom (URI) of the LA Lakers.

Please keep in mind that that was the worst game URI has played all year. I have seen or watched all 3 Ram losses and trust me on this. While SLU played grea D, URI absolutely played horrifically on offense. 34% shooting is not the norm. The foul trouble of Daniels was key as he is the most important URI player. His sitting altered the game quite a bit as it then allowed SLU to double team the other scoring threat, Jimmy Baron. The rest of URI's team failed to step up. The team you saw last night was not the norm. As for Rhody, they have gone 3-0 against the Big East winning at Syracuse, in Florida against South Florida, and home against Providence (who has beaten Florida State, Temple, Arkansas, and UConn). URI has also beaten UAB of CUSA. The lone OOC loss was a 4 point loss at BC. Rhody let a double digit lead evaporate which is not surprising given it was their 5th game away from home in 9 days.

You are correct - the Apollo and Liacouras are one in the same. The name just changed. I believe however that the new name is in honor of a past Temple Univ president. Naming rights were not sold. Temple played at McGonigle Hall (seated near 4000) on their campus prior to the new building. The 6500 seat Pavillion at Villanova has an interesting history. It was originally named Dupont Pavillion. One of the chemical company heirs donated much of the money for construction. John Dupont was also a big benefactor to the USA Olympic wrestling program. He however suffered a breakdown and killed 1984 Olympic Gold medalist wrestler David Schultz on his estate and barricaded himself in a standoff with police. He was later convicted of murder and sentenced to a psychiatric hospital. Villanova consequently dropped his name. The building is also sometimes referred to as the Cat-House. While all the Big-5 schools (St. Joe's/Villanova/Penn/Temple/LaSalle) had small gyms on campus, they played most of their games at UPenn's Palestra for decades. Use of the arena by the non-Penn Big 5 schools waned in the 80's with the rise of conferences in the east. The Palestra was famous for double and triple headers on Saturdays featuring all the Big-5 schools. St. Joe's, and to a lesser extent, LaSalle still play some "home" games at the Palestra since their gyms are very small. Typically they play only big name OOC opponents or other Big-5 schools there. St. Joe's almost never plays A-10 schools other than Temple or LaSalle there. This however will change for a short time as the Hawks are scheduled to play all home games there while their Alumni Hall is renovated. The Palestra is located on the Penn campus (which is in itself across the street from the Drexel campus) just a short walk across the river from the city. Penn's historic Franklin Field, home of the Quakers football program and host of the Penn Relays Track event, is right next to the Palestra. The Palestra is also not far from the site of the old Philadelphia Civic Center which was recently demolished. The Civic Center was the home of the old Philly NBA team, the Warriors. LaSalle played its home games there for some time and the Atlantic-10 Tournament was even held there.

St Louis losing by 40 to Kent? Your program is just killing the A-10. You might want to consider leaving the league. You are seriously hurting the RPI's of all the other members.

If you really don't like the league as much of you profess, petition your school to leave. Speaking as a fan of an A-10 program back east, I would rather SLU just leave instead of constantly hearing about how bad the league is from SLU fans and its coach. It is not as if SLU has been a great boon to the league to date and your school is a great distance from most members. I don't think it will be missed by many. Good bye and good luck!

Temple is #6 in all time number of wins for NCAA D1 programs. Only Kentucky, North Carolina, Kansas, Duke, and Syracuse have more wins. Temple Basketball has particpated in 25 NCAA Tournaments and 17 NIT Tournaments. The school has gone to two Final Fours and has five recent Elite 8's from 1988-2001. I guess, for some SLU fans, the standards for classifying storied NCAA programs are extremely tough. http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/tem/sp...kly-release.pdf

So you think it is a bad loss if the team that is predicted to finish 9th in the A-10 (Temple) loses on a neutral court to the team predicted to finish 8th in the Big East (Providence)? You have pretty tough standards. A-10 Predicted Order of Finish http://atlantic10.cstv.com/auto_pdf/p_hoto...easonallconfmbb Big East Predicted Order of Finish http://friars.cstv.com/sports/m-baskbl/spe.../102407aaa.html

Perspective from a Rhode Island fan: Cost: IAA or FCS football is a big drain on funds. It does not have a big revenue stream as there is little tv money. Any revenues it brings in are from local sources with ticket monies being the far and away largest factor. As an example, UMASS went to the championship game last year yet lost over one million dollars on its football program. Expenditures outrun revenues for the great majority of FCS programs. Pretty much only BCS programs have any chance of making money off football. Fan interest: 1AA or FCS football is not big with the causal fan. It is not considered "big-time". There are isolated pockets of interest in some places (Delaware and some Rocky Mountain and southern based programs). It is not very much followed in the densely populated northeast even though there are many programs located there. Look at the attendance for northeast FCS football games. SLU draws better for early season basketball games against no-name teams. Equity Issues: Having a football program with all its scholarships is tough for gender compliance. There is no single women's sport that uses anywhere near that number of scholarships. URI has a FCS football program. It is usually not very good and it garners little fan interest. There is always some talk that it should be dropped. UConn is a bad example to use. I have been to the new and old UConn stadiums and live in New England so i think I can comment. UConn was never a football school even when they were in the same league with UMass and URI. Basketball has always been king at UConn. The Huskies were fortunate to be picked for the Big East when the league was formed for basketball only some 25 years ago. When the Big East later added football, UConn had the option of upgrading. UConn eventually upgraded football to 1A but the main reason it did so might surprise you. UConn upgraded football for its basketball programs (men and women). There were rumors that the Big East might split along football lines. UConn, had the league split, would have been left with the small Catholic non football schools and its dreams of continued national college basketball prominence would have been greatly endangered. It chose to upgrade football to protect its basketball programs.

Fordham is not a "traditional" A-10 school in my opinion. It was one of the later teams admitted into the league. Fordham did not become a member until 1995/1996 when it joined along with Xavier, Dayton, and LaSalle. The original members of the league (first known as the Eastern Collegiate Basketball League and then Eastern-8) that remain are GW, UMass, and Duquense (Dukes however briefly left the league before later returning). The league was originally formed by 8 charter members - GW, UMass, Duquesne, Pittsburgh, Villanova, Penn State, Rutgers, and WVU. Villanova was first to jump when the Big East was formed and Pitt soon followed. Penn State left and then returned before ultimately joining the Big 10. Rutgers and WVU left the league in the early 90's (Va Tech came and went to BE as well) . The league has continuously been poached by other leagues. The highly hypocritical Big East Conference has been the prime raider of the A-10 as they have taken Villanova, Pitt, Virginia Tech, WVU, and Rutgers. The league which was mostly made up with state schools at the start (6 of 8 members public state institutions) has morphed several times and now has a majority of small Catholic school members. Current A-10 Members - First Year Duquesne 1976-77 (start) 1991-92 (end) 1993-94 (start) George Washington 1976-77 Massachusetts 1976-77 St. Bonaventure 1979-80 Rhode Island 1980-81 Saint Joseph's 1982-83 Temple 1982-83 Dayton 1995-96 Fordham 1995-96 La Salle 1995-96 Xavier 1995-96 Richmond 2001-02 Charlotte 2005-06 Saint Louis 2005-06 As for traditional members, I would classify any team left from when the league went to 10 members and changed its name to the A-10 in 1982-83 as a traditional member. These are the teams that were part of the league in its zenith (early to mid 1990's) and include GW, UMass, Duquesne, SBU, URI, SJU, and Temple. For more on the history of the league, check out this link: http://atlantic10.cstv.com/about/atl10-about.html

>Looks like The Hall is going to be having a similar problem >to what SLU had, unless they hire a guy like Tommy Amaker or >something: >----------------------------- > >Seton Hall’s days at the Meadowlands are over. The Pirates >are moving to the Prudential Center, the new, 18,500-seat >arena in downtown Newark that opens this fall. The building >features 76 luxury suites, 2,330 club seats, 750 television >monitors and many more bells and whistles. The move makes >sense for The Hall because its games will now be played much >closer to its campus in South Orange but 18,000 seats >remains much too large an arena for a program that doesn’t >regularly live in the top 20. Seton Hall is not paying for the new arena. It is being built by a governmental entity and it is primarily for the New Jersey Devils hockey team. The new arena in not on the Seton Hall campus but it is located much closer to the school than the CAA.

>Does anyone know where Rick will live while he's in St. >Louis? I believe that Majerus never owned in Utah. I seem to recall hearing that he lived for years in a hotel out there.

>It's nice to know that SLU has options: stay in A-10 but >make demands for our staying, join the MVC, initiate talks >about a new conference. The A-10 is not bowing to any "demands" by SLU. The league will only make change when a majority of members pushes for it. It will not solely do so for a program that only joined two years ago. You are really fooling yourself if you think that SLU can on its own dictate demands for staying in the league. Many of the eastern schools and their fans have never been totally comfortable with the addition of SLU due to its location. These groups would have no issue letting SLU leave.

URI fan here. I am with you as well. Pairing URI and SLU does not make much sense for either school. The distance between the two is the most in the league and the schools have little in common. I accepted the pairing for the first two years as I felt they probably had to have a few odd groupings to make it work for the entire league. I however do not understand continuing the home and home for both schools. Duquesne is also announcing that URI will be one of its home and home partners. URI will then have SLU and Duquense as two of its three home and home partners. This makes little sense from a URI perspective.

>Rhody will have its hands full with Richmond who can still >get in the A-10 tourney, but if they win they are #4 seed. > Rhode Island can do no worse than 4th. If GW beats Duquesne, URI will be seeded 4th regardless of the outcome of the Rhody game at Richmond. URI owns the tie-breakers over both SJU (won at Philly in only meeting) and Fordham (split the series but URI beat 1st or 2nd place UMass). URI already has therefore already secured a bye. The only unresolved matter is seeding (3rd or 4th) and right now it looks like 4th is most likely.

>We got spanked my a mediocre Rhode Island team. It was >another embarressing loss in a whole string of terrible >losses by 15+ points this year. > >A week to prepare and we give up 80+ points. GOOD WORK >COACHING STAFF!!! > >Being in 1st place in the A-10 is like being the tallest >midget amongst a colony of midgets. Its not that big of an >accomplishment... Rhody is not getting much respect from some of you. SLU is not any better than Rhode Island based on what has transpired this year thus far. An argument could even be made that URI is a better team considering the margin of last night's game. Looking at the A-10 standings, which is record of games against common opponents, would also seem to indicate URI may be better. I don't get where many are all upset about a loss on the road at the leader of the conference. All road games in any league are tough and wins on the road are never a given. Many here may have had very unrealistic expectations about how SLU would do in league play. I myself had thought the Billikens would do well this year (based on last season and returning players) but not to the degree some here predicted (I had thought about 11 wins was reasonable). The biggest surpise I found was in how some SLU fans thought A-10 road wins would come easy. That has not been the case for SLU. You only have one road win at SJU. If your team could not even win at SBU, why are some of you so surprised by a loss at Rhode Island?

>That's a pretty good coaching alumni in my personal opinion. > Sounds like the University has done well for themselves. >Not being an East coast guy, I really don't know much about >the A 10 teams. Thanks for the info.. > >On a side note, URI's coaching fraternity seems well more >successful and recognized than SLU's. Just my opinion, >though. I read your board regularly and understand that many SLU fans do not know much of the A-10 and its teams due to geography and your newness to the conference. That's why I thought I would give you a little info on Rhody. URI has had its share of successes. The problem is that it has also had its unsuccessful periods. There has not been any long term consistency for decades. Last year URI went 15-15 for a .500 record. It broke a string of 11 straight 20 win or 20 loss seasons. As unbelievable as it may sound, Rhode Island had six 20 or more wins seasons and five 20 or more losses seasons. It was either feast or famine with several quick rises and falls.

>thanks RF1 for that well drawn out description of Kingston >and its surrounding areas. So would you say the attraction >to the University for athletes would be the campus itself >and its facilities? The area surrounding the campus is very nice. It is countryish and not far from the coast. The URI campus itself is not the most beautiful campus environment. State universites are not well funded in the northeast and looked down upon. There is no uniform style to the campus and many buildings have an institutional look and feel to them. The on campus Ryan Center is a nice basketball facility. It seats just under 8,000 and opened just five years ago. It has most of the bells and whistles that new arenas have. It is all chairback seating completely surrounding the court. There is the main floor level, balcony level, and luxury suite level. There are video scorebaords, plenty of amenities (concessions and restrooms) and a souvenir shop. There are TV's in the carpetted concourses and radio connections in the restrooms (can hear game broadcast when you need to take care of business). The main reasons that basketball athletes would come to URI are for the coach, facility, and league (if other options are lesser leagues). Minority athletes may also like the fact that the student body is large and relatively diverse (by New England standards). We have had some success in the last two decades (Sweet-16 in 1988 and Elite-8 in 1998) so that may help. We have had some pretty good coaches in our history. Longtime coach Frank Keaney invented the fastbreak in Kingston and revolutionized the game back in the 30's and 40's. Coach Jack Kraft came to URI in the 70's after leading Villanova to the Final-4. Tom Penders left Fordham for URI and led the Rams to the Sweet-16 in 1988 before leaving for Texas. Al Skinner took URI to the NCAA a few times and parlayed that into the Boston College job. Jim Harrick then came to Rhody taking the team to the Elite-8 in 1998 after having been out of the game for a bit after winning the national championship at UCLA. Even current coach Jim Baron (former SBU coach) was offered the Virginia Tech job after just two years in Kingston. Several people associated with the program have later gone on to become head coaches in the NBA (3-Malone/Rothstein/Fratello) or head coaches at other colleges (Penders/Skinner/Harrick/Christian/Bozeman/Farmer/O'Shea).

>Does URI play Providence every year? Rhode Island plays both interstate rivals Providence College and Brown University once every season. Both series with these schools dates back over 80 years and in excess of 100 game shave been played aaginst each. The game with Big East member PC rotates sites. The game with Brown of the Ivy league used to rotate sites but more recently is only played at URI since the Ryan Center opened five years ago. Providence College and its AD Dave Gavitt founded the Big East conference. The league's offices are still headquartered in Providence.

>nice..... has anyone been to Kingston, RI? Don't know too >much about the city and wonder whether it is a worthwhile >road trip. Kingston is not a city. It is a village dating back to around 1800 and was a stopping point for coach travel from Boston to NYC. The village is in the coastal town of South Kingstown (pop approx 29,000). The town is not very industrialized as it has mostly been a summer resort and farming community. It is more recently becoming a suburb of Providence which is about 25 miles away. The town faces the Atlantic Ocean to the south. The main Boston-NYC-Washington Amtrak line skirts the rural campus and there is an Amtrak station one mile from campus. Route 95, the main north-south interstate from ME to FL, has an exit at route 138 just a few miles down the road from the campus. Green Airport (PVD), which is used by most major carriers, is less than 20 miles from campus. If you come to Kingston, it is only to see a game. There is not much right there other than the campus. Most visitors would take in the nearby coastal areas such as Narragansett and Newport or downtown Providence. Other nearby items of note are the two Indian casinos (Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun) in CT some 30 minutes from campus. While the Atlantic part of the A-10 may have no meaning for SLU fans, it is very much a part of life in and around URI. The Atlantic is just miles to the south and Narragansett Bay miles to the east. Block Island is just off the coast and there is also a large fishing port nearby. Surfing is very popular at the beaches and believe it or not continues throughout the winter (with wetsuits). With a storm coming tomorrow bringing big waves, there will likely be many surfers down at the Narragansett Town Beach and at the lighthouse at Point Judith taking advantage of the swells.

Rhode Island fans would rather forget the Stanford game. URI actually led by 6 with under a minute left. A win would have put Rhody in the Final Four. It however all fell apart very quickly. It still was the farthest URI has ever gone in the NCAA tournament. The highlight of the NCAA run by the Rams that year was win over a #1 seeded Kansas team led by Paul Pierce and Raef Lafrenz. Mobley and Wheeler both got drafted in the 2nd round in 1998. Wheeler did not last too long with Denver. Mobley did well in Houston before ending up with the LA Clippers. I just saw him score 20 points last week in a win over the Celtics. That was great time for URI basketball. The Rams had four straight 20 win seasons with post seasons invites. There were three straight NCAA trips highlighted by the Elite-8 in 1998. URI was the A-10 champion in 1999 during NBA Lottery pick and LA Lakers star Lamar Odom's one year in Kingston.

>Yeah the A-10 does have wayy to many teams. Does anyone >think there is any chance of cutting some of the lower level >teams (like the Bonnies so we don't have to worry about them >anymore). If they cut the worst 4 teams they'd be back to >actual A-10 (not 14), would improve the conference RPI, and >help teams develop better rivalries. I say right now cut >the Bonnies, Duquesne, Rhode Island, and La Salle. Given what has transpired this last week, I don't think SLU fans should be advocating expulsion of any teams from the league. As a Rhode Island fan, I am further offended that you include URI in your expulsion candidiates. It seems strange to me that fans of a program that has only been in the league for one year would be advocating getting rid of URI given the fact that the Rams have had more basketball success than the Billikins in the last decade or two. URI joined the A-10 in the early 80's and has gone to five NCAA and six NIT tournaments since becoming a member of the conference. URI has been in the postseason on average almost every other year since joining the league. Rhody has gone to an NCAA Sweet-16 in 1988 and an Elite-8 in 1998. Its NCAA record in this span is 6-5 with some wins over programs such as a #1 seeded Kansas, Syracuse, Missouri, and Purdue. Its NIT record is 6-6 with wins over the likes of Boston College, Vanderbilt, and Seton Hall. I was not aware that SLU has a better postseason resume in the last 20 years. Rhode Island has had an NBA lottery pick and several other players drafted. There are currently two former Rams starting in the NBA (Mobley-Clippers and Odom-Lakers). Rhode Island cannot be accused of not investing in its program as it has recently upgraded its facilities. The 54 million dollar Ryan Center which opened four years ago is currently the newest arena in the A-10 (until SLU opens its building). The arena has all the ammenities as it has luxury suites, video scoreboards, souvenir shop, and all chairback seating. URI may not currently be experiencing one of its better periods of basketball. Rhode Island however has had just one losing season in the last four years (two 20 wins seasons) and in that same time went to the NIT twice. With this in mind, do you still feel URI is not worthy of inclusion in your A-10 given what Rhode Island has done as a member to this point? If so, what exactly are your criteria?

As an occasional reader to your board, I was surprised when I read this thread and saw such lofty expectations for conference record. While the A-10 is admittedly not what it once used to be, I think many SLU fans often underestimate it. One should always keep in mind that it is never easy to win road games in college basketball, regardless of conference. My brief exposure to SLU has led me to believe that SLU typically does very well at home but has its struggles on the road as do most away teams. I therefore thought predictions of 13-14 A-10 wins was a bit high. 10-12 wins is more the norm for upper tier teams in the league most years. The exceptions to this have been the VERY GOOD teams such as some of the Temple and UMass teams and the GW team of last year and SJU team of 3 seasons ago (Elite-8) and this year's SLU team is not in their class. It seems to me that many SLU sports fans (basketball and soccer come to mind) expect that their team will dominate the league. That is not usually the case with any team. While SBU is far from a great team this year, the Riley Center in Olean, is usually one of the toughest venues in the conference. Last night during school break in a down season was not really indicative of the typical RC atmosphere. That place can really get wild for Saturday games in Late January and February. It is a very small and tight building (seats less than listed 6,000). The fans are right on top of the players. There have been many crazy incidents there over the years at A-10 games like the cookie throwing at Chaney, Hawk mascot assault, and Martelli having a shouting match with a middle aged femaile SBU fan. SLU fans should not be shocked by a loss there. Get used to it as it will happen more over the coming years. The SBU team ha sbeen playing much better now in the last two games. The Bonnies played Syracuse pretty tough in the Carrier Dome a week before the SLU game. It is kind of ironic that many SLU fans, after only one full season in the league, have been openly advocating that the A-10 dump teams. The most mentioned team always seemed to be SBU. Now SBU, with its low RPI rating, beats SLU. Any fan talk about dropping teams and expecting a cakewalk through conference play should stop given what transpired last night.

Good Luck from a Rhode Island fan. Rhody won its first round game at Big East member Rutgers last Saturday in a shootout. The Rams next play at Lehigh. Let's hope SLU and URI can continue on in the tournament and make A-10 soccer proud.

Rhody fans wish fellow A-10 member SLU good luck in the NCAA Tournament. Rhode Island will travel to Rutgers for its first round game. This will be URI's 3rd tournament in the last 4 years and 11th overall. It was especially good to see the Rams continue their winning ways under their new first year head coach. URI had been coached for a very long time by Ed Bradley who built the program up. All three Division 1 Men's soccer programs located in Rhode Island will be in the NCAA Soccer Tournament for the 2nd straight year as URI will be joined again by Brown (Ivy) and Providence (Big East). I can recall SLU fans maligning the quality of A-10 soccer prior to joining the league. It would seem however that it may not be as bad as many had thought. As the last two seasons have shown, SLU winning the A-10 is not a given.