The America East released a statement today saying that they would keep the America East men's basketball tournament in Albany despite the MAAC's decision to leave Trenton and playing in Albany the same weekend.

This is the first we've heard from the conference since the MAAC's decision to move its conference tournament to Albany almost a month ago.

I think it's a good decision. If some of basketball is good, more must be better.

It should make for an exciting week in March '09.

Allen Field House must be ready for both Capital District college basketball teams as Siena is not also set to head out for a non-conference matchup with the defending champion Jayhawks.

Kansas is projected to lose four player to the NBA Draft and one more to professional ball in Russia, but Bill Self will still have that team loaded for dates against the Saints and the Great Danes.

UAlbany has also set in stone its opening game date with Villanova before traveling to take on DePaul.

Sources are saying that the University at Albany men's basketball team will play at defending national champion Kansas, at Allen Field House, next season.

Other non-league games to speak of are a game at Big East member DePaul and another game against the Big East team that knocked Siena out of the NCAA Tournament, Villanova.

This is some very ambitious scheduling by Will Brown for a team that will certainly searching for an identity early in the year.

ESPN has posted the latest mock draft from writer Chad Ford.

Two interesting notes.

First, Rider's Jason Thompson is predicted to go No. 20 to Denver.
The skinny: The big man from Rider may not be flashy, but he put up big numbers for four years and would give the Nuggets something they need: a consistent scoring presence in the paint.
Thompson could end up moving ahead of a number of bigs with more upside because more teams are valuing production over potential this year.
That would be big for the MAAC if Thompson could go in the first round and give the conference a little bit of nationally publicity.

Second, Shan Foster, Vanderbilt's guard and SEC Player of the Year, who was outplayed significantly in the NCAA First Round game by most of the Siena players, but notably Kenny Hasbrouck, is projected to go in the second round at No. 54 to Houston.
Foster is a lights-out shooter, but the rest of his game is a little one-dimensional.

The draft, which is only two days away, should be very interesting.

Here's the link...
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/draft2008/columns/story?columnist=ford_chad&page=MockDraft-080623

With the weather being that of what it is in the Midwest, I thought it appopriate to re-post the link of Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Kernels catcher Chris Rosenbaum's blog.

Rosenbaum is a native of the Capital District and played at and attended Columbia High School before going to the University of Tampa and last season playing with the Orem (Utah) Owlz after being signed by the Los Angeles Angels organization as a undrafted free agent.

If you followed the news, Cedar Rapids is one of the areas being hardest hit by the flooding and Chris has some thoughts and other links if you would like to help out, in one of his latest posts.

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

Siena College and UAlbany fans will be out in full force when the A-East and MAAC tournaments are held in Albany the first weekend in March. (J.S. Carras — The Record).

The picture says it all as the rivalry will heat up in March when the America East and Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Tournaments take place on the same weekend, less than five miles apart.

The big news Thursday was that the MAAC Tournament was leaving Trenton and moving to Albany for the 2009, but University at Albany Director of Athletics Dr. Lee McElroy said competiting with the MAAC will be important when the tournament-time comes around.

"We've got to produce in head-to-head competition. We have one on Decemeber 6 (vs. Siena) and that's important and we have another MAAC oppoenent that we're playing this season as well."

UAlbany played Canisius, a MAAC opponent during the 2007-08 schedule, but that was an ESPN BracketBusters game and not orginially scheduled.

The Great Danes will host the Golden Griffins at SEFCU as a return date this upcoming season for the BracketBusters game.

UAlbany's 2007-08 non-conference schedule
at Bucknell
at Central Connecticut State
vs. Columbia
vs. Lehigh
at Siena
at Delaware
at St. Bonaventure
vs. St. Francis (NY)
at Duke
vs. Boise State
at Iowa State
at Canisius (BracketBusters)

It looks as if the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Tournament will be held in Albany in 2009.

Channel 13 in Albany is stating that the tournament, which was supposed to be held in Trenton, New Jersey, will in fact be back in the Capital District next season.

This would be very good for Siena fans and also the conference because Albany seems to be the location that draws the most fans and with a very good Siena team expected for next season, the crowds should be huge.

It also means that the MAAC Tournament would be in direct competition with the America East Tournament, which was awarded to the University at Albany a few weeks ago.

The interesting question is why did the tournament leave Trenton and will this have any effect on the America East's decision to have the tournament here. We will try to find that out tomorrow.