Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Martin dismissed from UAlbany basketball team

Another offseason blow to the University at Albany men's basketball team.

Albany, N.Y. -- University at Albany head coach Will Brown announced today that freshman guard Josh Martin has been dismissed from the men’s basketball program, effective immediately, for repeated violations of team rules.

That's the press release that just came across my desk.

Below is the last year's roster with the returning players and their year for next season and a little bit about what they did this past year.

1 Billy Allen, So. - DNP Injury
3 Josh Martin - dismissed from program
5 Jerel Hastings, Sr. - started 22 games, 4.9 pts. and 3.2 reb.
11 Reid Anderson - transferred out
12 Rob Moores - transferred out

14 Jon Iati - graduating senior
21 Brian Lillis - graduating senior
23 Tim Ambrose, rs-So. - 7.2 pts/gm, 24 points vs. Duke
33 Brian Connelly, Sr. - started all 30 gm, 10.1 pts, 5.3 reb
34 Brent Wilson - graduating senior
42 Jimmie Covington, Sr. - started 15 games, 1.7 pts/gm
54 Brett Gifford, Jr. - started four games, 2.1 pts/gm
55 Al Turley, So. - started 11 games, 2.9 pts/gm
xx Logan Aronhalt - incoming freshman
xx Jake Lindfors - incoming freshman
xx Anthony Raffa - incoming freshman

xx Louis Barraza - soph. transfer from Yavapai College
xx Michael Johnson - transfer from Blinn College

With the trouble UAlbany had scoring the ball this year, they better hope their talented trio of freshman can put the ball in the basket because they are losing 41.7 of their 68.3 points per game or 61 percent of their offense from this past season.

De La Rosa to UMBC????

It looks as if recently departed Siena guard Chris De La Rosa will be joining another team that played in the 2008 NCAA Tournament.

Various reports, including CBS's Doug Sherman on Tuesday evening, but none that I can find from Baltimore or a UMBC release, have the 5-foot-9 guard headed to join the Retreivers.

UMBC plays in the America East and made their first trip to the NCAA Tournament last year, losing in the first round to Georgetown, after posting a 24-9 record.

UMBC head coach Randy Monroe just recieved a 6-year extension and through a bunch of transfers, had this team very competitive last year.

Obviously the biggest news from this, is De La Rosa will make return trips to the Capital District in the coming years, although he will have to sit out next season due to NCAA rules for transfers.

The Retrievers lose three of their top four scorers to graduation (Cavell Johnson, Brian Hodges and Ray Barbosa) and First Team All-Conference guard Jay Greene, who runs the UMBC offense, is a junior and will graduate before De La Rosa becomes available.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Siena up 24-1....MAAC Tournament stuff

The Saints' hot stretch has finally reached the peak of heat on the diamond as they are up 24-1 in the ninth inning against Manhattan.

A win will tie the 2001 club that won 11 straight games and now this club has won 19 of 21 to push their record to 28-24.

Tomorrow's game will be at 3 p.m. and exclusively online as there are conflicts with 88.3 WVCR, most notably the Albany Conquest game which is in the evening.

If the Saints win tomorrow at 3 p.m., they move into Saturday's championship game. If they lose, they play later Friday evening at 7 p.m.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Rider's JT going No. 26

Checking in at Ian Thomsen's Sports Illustrated mock draft, one MAAC player can be found.

Rider's 6-foot-11 forward Jason Thompson is projected to go No. 26 to none other than the San Antonio Spurs.

Boy, wouldn't that be great for both Thompson and the MAAC, if the Broncs big man could learn from Tim Duncan.

Here's what Thomsen says about the other Thompson, with a p and an o instead of an e.

A long, unselfish big man who might be able to help the Spurs off the bench as a scorer and rebounder in a year or two. He needs to get stronger, but he's skilled.

Here's the link.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/ian_thomsen/05/21/mock.draft.3/index.html

For the record, Thomsen has the Bulls selecting 6-foot-11 forward Michael Beasley with the No. 1 overall pick.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Hudson Valley baseball.....live from Texas

Hudson Valley takes on Ridgewater College, from Minnesota, tonight in Tyler, Texas in the Division III NJCAA World Series. The game is at 9 p.m. EDT and 7 p.m. locally in Texas.

Here is a link for live stats, box scores, schedules and brackets.

http://www.tylerbaseball.com/worldseries

Thursday, May 15, 2008

RPI baseball....online and on the radio

Rensselear's baseball team is competing in the New York Regional this weekend in Auburn.

They came-from-behind to defeat Farmingdale last night 7-6 and play No. 7-seed Ohio Wesleyan tonight at 7:45.

Here are some links that are going to be useful for following RPI.


http://www.wrpi.org/ - Rensselaer's broadcast which can also be heard in the Capital District on 91.5 FM

http://bombers.ithaca.edu/News/baseball/2008/5/12/baseball%20regionalpage%20051208.asp?path=baseball - Ithaca, the host school, has a great page here with links for both live stats and web broadcasts and also box scores, recaps and a schedule for the entire regional.

The winner of the regional will head to the Division III College World Series in Appleton, Wisconsin.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Chris Rosenbaum's blog

In my attempts to catch up with the local minor and major league players on Sunday, I came across something interesting.

It seems as if Columbia High graduate and current Ceder Rapids Kernels (Los Angeles Angels, Class A) catcher Chris Rosenbaum has a blog set up called Looking through the mask through our sister paper The Independent.

I had a chance to do a feature on Chris when he was picked up last season by the Angels organization and played the season with the Orem Owlz in Utah.

From what I've looked at, it looks like some real interesting stuff.

I'll post the link here.

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19527020&BRD=248&PAG=461&dept_id=462340&rfi=6

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Siena and UAlbany sign three-year hoops deal

Andrew Santillo
The Record

ALBANY — Siena College and the University at Albany will renew their men’s basketball on December 6, 2008 as the first part of a new three-year agreement between the institutions.

The Albany Cup, which the two Capital District teams play for, has grown into one of the most anticipated sporting events in the area since the two teams renewed their rivalry in 2001 after a 25-year hiatus.

A total of 75,830 fans have turned out for the seven meetings since the series was renewed, an average of 10,833 per game. This past season, a record number of 13,262 fans attended a 75-71 Siena win.

“We began playing this series for the community and pledged to continue playing as long as the support remained,” Siena College Director of Athletics John D’Argenio said. “The fans, especially this past season, have been tremendous, so continuing the series made sense.”

“This is a great game for the City of Albany and the surrounding area,” UAlbany head coach Will Brown said. “It only makes sense that the two Division I basketball programs in this area meet on an annual basis. I am sure that our students, fans and alumni will be excited that the series is continuing.”

The schools’ women’s basketball programs will not play next season due to scheduling conflicts, but will resume play as part of a men’s-women’s doubleheader during the 2009-10 season.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Downey gives Siena verbal

According to reports, Fairport High's Kyle Downey has given Siena coach Fran McCaffery his verbal committment to come on board for the 2008-09 season and will apparently sign his Letter of Intent today.
Downey, who was named the 2007-08 All-Greater Rochester Boys Basketball Player of the Year by the Rochester Democrat & Cronicle, averaged 26 points and 10.2 rebounds per game.

(Kyle Downey (12) drives to the lane in a game this past season against Greece Athena - Rochester Democrat & Cronicle)


The 6-foot-2 guard had offers from Boston University, Northeastern, Coastal Carolina, Stony Brook and Le Moyne.

Downey will join fellow Fairport High alum Cory Magee on Siena's roster and will be only the fourth guard, joining Kenny Hasbrouck, Ronald Moore and Clarence Jackson.

Downey was looking at attending prep school, but when Chris De La Rosa decided to transfer on May 1, things changed for the 195-pound guard.

"Once I went to Siena it was a no-brainer," Downey told the D & C.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

UAlbany to Host 2009 America East Tournament

The University at Albany will host the 2009 America East Men's Basketball Tournament as announced by the conference this afternoon.

Albany and Hartford had submitted bids and this will be the first time UAlbany has hosted the event.

The event was held in at Binghamton's Events Center this year and in 2007 was at Agganis Arena and hosted by Boston University.

The nine-team tournament will begin with a first round game on Friday, March 6. Quarterfinal and semifinal games follow on Saturday, March 7 and Sunday, March 8 and the championship game, as in years past, will be played Saturday, March 14 at the home court of the higher remaining seed at televised by ESPN2.

De La Rosa Leaving Siena

Back-up point guard Chris De La Rosa has informed coach Fran McCaffery that he will not return to the Siena men's basketball program for his sophomore season.

From the Siena press release.

"Chris was a valuable member of our championship season," McCaffery said. "I appreciate his contributions and everyone associated with Siena basketball wishes him the best of luck."

De La Rosa appeared in 33 games and averaged 2.5 points in 9.5 minutes per contest as a reserve for the Saints during the 2007-08 season.

An interesting decision and one that I surely did not see coming. De La Rosa seemed to pick up momentum as the season wore on and he seemed to be a more integral part of Siena's offensive attack.

Especially with Siena's only senior Tay Fisher, a guard, set to graduate it seems as if Chris' minutes would have rose in 2008-09.

With starting point guard Ronald Moore being just a year older than De La Rosa, one may think that Chris' idea was to become the starter and that didn't look like it would happen for two more years.

This decision frees up a scholarship for Siena for the upcoming season and De La Rosa becomes the third Capital District hoopster (UAlbany's Reid Anderson and Rob Moores) to transfer away following the 2007-08 season.