There has been more news coming out of Siena in the past few days. The men's basketball year-end banquet was held on Thursday, in Troy, but it seems like the season continues going right into the spring. 

Here is a link to the story about Gina Castelli, settling in at her new position, as head coach at Le Moyne College.

Here is a link to a story from the Siena banquet and how the roster continues to change at this point in time.

Below is video of new Siena coach Jimmy Patsos.



Below is video of Siena's Evan Hymes.

Former Siena women's basketball coach Gina Castelli was hired today by Le Moyne.

The Dolphins play in the Northeast-10, which is the league that The College of Saint Rose is in.

Castelli spent 22 seasons as the Saints coach, but was let go after the 2011-12 season.

Here is the link to Le Moyne's release.

J.S. Carras/The Record

After stepping down in March, the winningest coach in Siena women's basketball history has a new home.

Gina Castelli is the new Director of Player Development at Rhode Island.

Here is a link to her bio page.

Castelli posted a 336-296 record for the Saints and was named Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Coach of the Year five times.

Castelli also guided Siena to seven MAAC regular season titles, three berths in the WNIT and one NCAA tournament bid (2001).

J.S. Carras/The Record

LOUDONVILLE — The Siena women’s basketball program will begin a new era this afternoon.

Just five weeks after longtime coach Gina Castelli and the school parted ways, Siena is set to announce the hiring of Ali Jaques as the eighth women’s coach in program history, this afternoon.

Jaques leaves Northwestern, where she was the associate head coach. The New Jersey native has also made coaching stops at Rider, Sacred Heart, Furman, Dayton and George Washington.

At Dayton, she assisted under former Siena coach Jim Jabir (1987-90), who was the coach that preceded Castelli in Loudonville.

Jaques played Division III basketball at New York University and was part of the 1997 national championship team.

Castelli had just finished her 22nd season at the helm, leading the Saints to a 12-17 record, but making it to the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference semifinals, before losing to Fairfield. On March 8, it was announced that the school and Castelli had agreed to move in a new direction. 

Castelli finished her career with a 336-296 record, won one MAAC tournament title (2001) and was named MAAC coach of the year five times.

Athletic Director John D’Argenio will meet with the media today to discuss the hiring of Jaques.

J.S. Carras/The Record

LOUDONVILLE - Surprising news out of Siena College, on Thursday, as the school announced that they are moving in a new direction and Gina Castelli will not be the head coach next season.

Castelli spent 22 seasons in Loudonville and won more than 300 games for the Saints.

She took the school to one NCAA tournament appearance and three WNIT appearances.

Athletic Director John D'Argenio said it was a difficult decision, especially because the two had worked together for more than 20 years.

“It makes coming to this decision very difficult,” he said.

The school will begin looking for a replacement.

Siena coach Gina Castelli talks about her team's 63-48 loss to Fairfield in the MAAC semifinals.

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. - The Siena men's basketball team is a middle of the road team.

So say the coaches of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, which voted them sixth in the preseason poll on Tuesday, in Springfield, Mass., the new home of the MAAC basketball championships from 2012-14.

Iona is the No. 1 team, followed by Fairfield, Loyola (Md.) and Rider.

The Saints were picked to finish second in last year's preseason poll, but struggled to a 13-18 finish, including an 8-10 record in league play, despite having player of the year Ryan Rossiter.

Junior forward O.D. Anosike was selected to the third team all-MAAC, but was the only Siena men's player honored on the preseason list.

It marked the first time in four years that the Saints haven't placed at least two players on the preseason first team. In 2008-09, Kenny Hasbrouck, Edwin Ubiles and Alex Franklin were chosen, while in 2009-10 Ubiles and Ronald Moore were selected and last season Rossiter and Clarence Jackson represented Siena on the preseason first team.

Siena has also had the last three MAAC postseason Players of the Year recipients in Hasbrouck ('08-09), Franklin ('09-10) and Rossiter, last season.

The preseason first team included Scott Machado and Mike Glover of Iona, and Ryan Olander and Derek Needham of Fairfield and Rider's Novar Gadson.

After a terrific end to last season, the Siena women's team in fourth place and pushed six-time champion Marist to the edge in a semifinal matchup.

Surprisingly, the Saints were selected to finish in seventh place in the preseason poll.

Gina Castelli's club lost leading scorer and rebounder Serena Moore, but have a nice core group of players, including seniors Maja Gerlyng and Cristina Centeno.

Centeno was chosen to the all-MAAC preseason second team, while Gerlyng was placed on the third team.

The Siena women's basketball team leaves for an overseas trip to Denmark and Italy, next weekend.

Traveling to Denmark is especially exciting because the team will get to travel to the hometown's of senior captain Maja Gerlyng and incoming freshman Ida Krogh. Coach Gina Castelli has begun a pipeline from Denmark to Loudonville and it'll be interesting to see if this trip nets to the program and more Danish players.

Here is a link to keep track of the entire trip.

LOUDONVILLE - The hottest college basketball team in the area is the Siena women's basketball team.

The Saints won the fifth straight game on Monday night, defeated Fairfield 54-46.

Siena is 4-0 in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, tied with Marist for first place.

"I think they're learning what it takes to be a No. 1 team," said Siena coach Gina Castelli at Tuesday's meeting with the media. "I'm not sure we're there yet, in terms of the mentality."

When asked what the biggest difference has been since the team started 1-8, Castelli responded teamwork.

"That's the hard thing to get," she said. "There's just a definite difference in how our players are seeing the game."

The team has been led all season by senior Serena Moore (left).

"I can't say enough about her effort," Castelli said.

The play of juniors Cristina Centeno and Maja Gerlyng have really helped boost the team.

"For Cristina to be the high scorer yesterday, that says a lot about her game and how it's evolved, especially this year," Castelli said. "Maja, obviously, has really turned it on and Serena has been the one that everyone has been concentrating on."

The Saints' next two games are at Niagara (Friday) and at Canisius (Sunday).

Marist has won the past four MAAC titles, but right now it looks like Siena has a chance to make a run for the title.

"It's tough because Marist is so good right now," Castelli said. "And then it's everybody else in the league."

Colonie native Tehresa Coles has signed on with Gina Castelli to play the 2011-12 season with the Siena women's basketball team.

Our high school reporter Will Montgomery has the news over on his blog.

Coles has one more year of high school left and was one of the top players in Section II, last year as a junior.

Siena women's basketball coach Gina Castelli and senior Merrick Volpe following the Saints 59-43 loss in the MAAC quarterfinals to Iona.

Siena coach Gina Castelli talks about her team limiting Rider to a MAAC Tournament-record low 25 points in their play-in victory on Thursday.

Gina Castelli and Siena picked up their first win of the 2009-10 season on Saturday night .

It's Castelli's 300th victory of her career.

The Great Danes drop to 3-4.

Gina Castelli and her Siena Saints were ranked No. 8 in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference preseason poll at the ESPN Zone in New York City.

"I think one of the reasons we were picked eighth is because we have a lot of unknowns," said Castelli, who is entering her 20th season as head coach.

Senior Allie Lindemann was selected to the preseason third team.

It was a weird day today for many different reasons.

First off, the unfortunate incident with the Albany River Rats bus getting into an accident on Interstate 90 early Thursday morning.

"My heart goes out to the River Rats family," said Siena coach Fran McCaffery at his weekly luncheon. "So many times we are in that same boat."

With all the travel college teams due, both McCaffery and Siena women's coach Gina Castelli understood how frightening that could be, especially since they are in a guardian type role with regards to their student-athletes.

"Even when our assistants are recruiting, we’re often on the Mass Pike and that’s a dangerous place because you can’t see the ice," Castelli said.

McCaffery says he's had the same bus driver for every trip and that's something that is very important to him.

"It’s one thing I have always been an absolute stickler about - we have the same bus driver," McCaffery said.

He went on to say that their driver, Willy Wakefield "is as big a part of the Siena basketball program as anybody."

Then, I got into work and saw that Saint Rose senior captain Evan Lane had been kicked off the basketball team.

I've had the chance to speak with Evan a couple of times over the past two years and he has always seemed like a hard-working kid, who gives 100 percent.

I've also been able to speak with coach Brian Beaury on many of occasions and I'm sure he's making the correct decision or at least the necessary one.

On top of that, I did my first spring sports story on the UAlbany lacrosse team (who I guess didn't get the message that it's still 25 degrees out) for Friday's paper edition.

Also, I was at Siena to do something for the paper on the team winning the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference title last night due to Rider's victory over Niagara.

All in all it was one of the stranger days I've seen since I've been in the business.

It was just 11 days ago that Siena senior guard Shondaya Burrell was called the "face of the program" for Siena women's basketball by head coach Gina Castelli.

Today, the "face of the program" was suspended immediately and indefinitely for conduct "violating College policy."

“This is unfortunate, but it is the right thing to do,” said Director of Athletics John D’Argenio in a email on Friday. “Suspending someone from something that they deeply enjoy doing is not a decision that is made lightly, but actions have consequences. Part of our mission is to teach our students responsibility and accountability.”

Burrell averaged 13.9 points and 6.2 rebounds last season and seemed ready to take over this season as the Saints top player until this.

“We have always talked to our team about the importance of making good choices and winning the right way,” Castelli said. “Although we are greatly disappointed, I’m confident we will move forward, learn a valuable lesson and enjoy a successful season.”

With the season opener, Friday, Nov. 14 against Syracuse three weeks from tonight, that leaves fifth-year senior Heather Stec the team's leading returning scorer at 7.5 points per game and then a major drop off to junior Sarah Fullmer and her 3.4 points per game in 2007-08.

This also leads a gaping hole at the guard position.

This isn't good for a team that went 11-18 last season and was already trying to fill in a couple of key spots.

Siena hosted their women's basketball media day today.

Head coach Gina Castelli called senior guard Shondaya Burrell, the "face of the program."

I thought it was a little strange that she wasn't named a co-captain then with fellow senior Heather Stec.

Still, I digress.

Burrell was very optimistic about the upcoming season, seeing as the Saints are coming off of a 11-18 year and they lost 50 percent of their scoring when Laura Menty (19.1 points per game) and Melissa Manzer (13.3) graduated.

Burrell said she is in great shape coming into the year, after running hills in Lincoln Park with her father and boxing in her uncle's gym during the summer.

Burrell had knee surgery in Sept. 2007 and had to miss three and a half weeks of conditioning, but she feels like the increased running and boxing will help her.

“It worked a lot of different muscles that I didn’t know I had,” said Burrell of the boxing. “Boxing is totally different than basketball.”

Burrell said her games has changed drastically since she was a freshman, thanks to Castelli.

“When I was in high school, I was drive, drive, drive,” said Burrell, who played locally at Colonie High School. “When I came here, Coach Castelli sat me down and talked to me about being an all-around good player…I think from high school to now, my jump shot has gotten better, I drive with a lot more urgency, my rebounding is a lot stronger — so I think everything has become so much better because Coach Castelli has really led me in the right direction.”

Castelli said she is confident that Burrell can give the team a leadership type player, but she needs to do it on more of a consistent basis.

“I think she wants that type of notoriety in a sense,” Castelli said. “She’s shown, last year, that she was able to put us on her shoulders.”

Burrell said the team also did a lot of training in the pool, which was difficult for her because she's not the greatest swimmer.

“She’s fast on the court, that’s all that matters,” said Stec, who added that she tried to help Shondaya with her swimming technique.

Stec is back, after missing the first 10 games of last year because of a broken metatarsal bone in her foot.

Stec said that she wears orthotics in her shoes, even when she's not on the court.

The Saints open Friday, Nov. 14, against Syracuse and Castelli's former assistant coach Quentin Hillsman, who led the Orange to a 22-9 record last season and a spot in the NCAA Tournament.