The America East Media Day took place today at the Fort Orange Club in Albany.

It was a good way to get all of the coaches together and pretty useful (at least for me).

For the fans, here is the preseason poll...
Team (1st votes) Total
1. Boston U. (5) 59
2. Vermont (4) 55
3. Hartford 51
4. UMBC 45
5. Binghamton 37
6. UAlbany 30
7. New Hampshire 24
8. Maine 13
9. Stony Brook 10

Here is the preseason all-conference team....
*Corey Lowe, Jr., G, Boston U.
Joe Zeglinski, Jr. G, Hartford
Jay Greene, Sr. G, UMBC
*Marqus Blakely, Jr., F, Vermont
Mike Trimboli, Sr., G, Vermont
*unanimous selection

The votes were taken a month ago and therefor the recent decision that Virginia transfer Will Harris can play for the Great Danes this season did not weight on the coaches' decisions.

"I firmly believe that people base the preseason stuff on comfort," UAlbany coach Will Brown said. "I think coaches look at who is returning in the league, what All-Conference players are coming back and they are a little more comfortable talking about guys and kids that have proven themselves already in the America East. I would like to think we would have been higher, maybe we were picked too high to begin with now. I just think there's uncertanity and question marks becuase I don't think anyone can say they know what we have."

Also, of the first team All-Conference players from last year, four return (UAlbany's Brian Lillis graduated). Still, Corey Lowe and Mike Trimboli, who were second team All-Conference players replaced UMBC's Darryl Proctor on the First Team.

Brown said jokingly that he doesn't know why any league coach would want to upset Proctor, who averaged 15.1 points and 8.4 rebounds per game.

Also of note, freshman guard Anthony Raffa sprained his ankle in Sunday's practice during a rebounding drill.

Here's what Coach Brown had to say about that.

"Four guys tackled him and landed on him and he was screaming and we carried him off and he was on crutches yesterday," Brown said. "It's a high ankle sprain, not of the severity that Jason Siggers had a couple of years ago, that was probably as bad an ankle sprain as you can get, but enough that we're not sure if he'll be able to scrimmage on Saturday."

There's no timetable for Raffa's return, but Brown said they're hoping he can do some light drill work Thursday or Friday.

"We're not going to rush him back," Brown added. "He's a competitor and played well in the Purple-Gold scrimmage after struggling a couple days in practice. I know he doesn't want to lose any time because he wants to be a integral part, right away, of what we're doing."