olddog71

The previous quotation comes from SienaTony today on HIS forum. It's clear to me that he is trying to instigate another problem between Siena and UAlbany. Then he stands back and acts all innocent when UAlbany contributors post messages in any way contradictory to his way of thinking. Then we go through more insults by him, more input from us, and then the inevitable banning of UAlbany posters on HIS website, etc. Just wanted to give everyone here a heads-up on the latest topic.

As other posters have written here before, it's great to see that so many Great Dane athletes also excel in the classroom. The quotation comes from the AE Board.

Thanks, guys, for your input. I have a clearer picture of the whole situation, even though the situation isn't exactly crystal clear.

Why would an AE football league not receive an auto bid? This sentence is really a question, rather than criticism. I just don't know much about this situation. My very limited understanding of the playoff situation regarding 1-AA football postseason is that any league with six members or more automatically qualify for the postseason - which I thought this new league would qualify as, but I am woefully ignorant of the scenarios as a whole. Anyway, it's exciting to know that the UAlbany football program is taking large strides in a relatively short period of time.

UAlbany posters hammered your OOC schedule last year because posters on your board, led by your moderator, hammered UAlbany's conference schedule. There are insulting comments about our membership in the "AmericaLeast" posted on your board repetitively. UAlbany played the hand it was dealt. UAlbany posters are giving you back a little of your own medicine. Sure, our conference RPI was weaker than your conference RPI this last season. Almost all UAlbany posters recognized that fact. So because of guilt by association, UAlbany was deemed by most posters as being a very weak Division I team. When UAlbany posters replied about the high-ranking OOC teams we faced last year, then you got nasty again. When you can claim that you played 3 of the 4 best teams in the country competitively, as defined by how these teams fared in the NCAA tournament, then we'll talk about strength of schedule again. Enjoy the relatively high-ranking status of your conference for now. From what I have read about players lost to graduation, low grades, transfers, etc., your conference may not be as strong as it has been in the recent past. The AmericaEast this year, in my estimation, will be much more competitive with its OOC conference this year than last season. We have extremely effective coaches now at just about every school, and they are bringing in a large number of quality players. I don't easily make predictions, but I am guessing our two conferences will be very close to equal strength in just two seasons.

There used to be dissenters, but they've all been run off the site.

Binghamton doesn't have its own website where their fans talk up their teams. There are other obvious differences, as well.

From the UAlbany website today: "ROBERTO VIVES NAMED THE NORTHEAST MEN'S TRACK COACH OF THE YEAR Albany, N.Y. - University at Albany head track and field coach Roberto Vives has been selected as the Northeast District's Men's Coach of the Year for the outdoor season as announced Thursday, June 1 by the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association. In each district, Division I coaches nominated and selected one winner in six categories. "Vives led the UAlbany men's track team to its second consecutive America East Conference outdoor championship in 2006. His athletes took home five individual titles and one relay en route to posting the third championship in four years. He also guided the women's track team to its first-ever conference crown this season. "Vives, who works with the team's hurdlers, guided freshman Joe Greene to an IC4A 400-meter hurdles title and an at-large bid to the NCAA Championships, which will be held on June 7-10 in Sacramento, Calif. Teammate Marc Pallozzi will join Greene at the championships to compete in the javelin throw. "As director of UAlbany track and field and cross country for 21 seasons, Vives has guided his teams to a combined 30 conference championships, including seven since joining the America East in 1999-2000. He also oversees middle-distance runners for UAlbany, including Gered Burns, who became the school's first Division I All-American when he placed fifth in the 800-meter run at the 2006 NCAA Indoor Championships." This honor is very great for him. He deserves it after his long tenure and great success. The team members deserve the honor, too, for all their effort and loyalty. The school is showing a higher and higher level of progress in developing a successful all-around Division I program. Congratulations to all!

Wow! Great article. McElroy certainly puts a lot of issues in the article in their proper perspective. The next few years at UAlbany are going to be quite a ride.

daneguy04, I apologize. I only meant my last post as a joke, particularly in the light of the discussion we've been reading on the strengths of schedule between UAlbany and Siena in the last couple days. I really should have indicated my post was merely a joke. In regard to the post, however, you do have a very valid point. We began Division I only a few years ago, and we were happy when we could schedule teams with a decent RPI. It would be cruel to turn our backs now on aspiring new D I programs. I think it's one reason we had Utah Valley State on our schedule last year and plan to play them again this coming season. Now, that situation is not so difficult to obtain for our schedule.

Didn't we pick up a home-and-away with NJIT?

Yes, Siena did dominate in the overtime. Nobody here will dispute that, and, to tell you the truth, I thought UAlbany would win the game after regulation. UAlbany returned from an emotional game against highly-ranked UCLA four days before the Siena game, complete with a three-hour time differential. At that point in our schedule, UAlbany did not really know how to win games. We had not won a close game in almost two years. After our losing streak ended at 2-6, UAlbany went on a 19-5 run to end our season. I would not be all that confident of a Siena victory over UAlbany this coming season. We will remember the last game. We also have some factors that will weigh in our favor as opposed to last year.

We did not say that Siena played a weak schedule, but, on the other hand, Penn, Hofstra, and UMass are NOT Florida, UCLA, or UConn. UAlbany fans are very aware that we lost to the likes of Sacred Heart and other teams. Some Siena fans look only at those losses to judge our season. UAlbany fans are merely saying that our basketball program has made major progress in the last few years. Our progress is phenomenal since we have been in Division I only 7 years. Regarding our match this season, please don't make the mistake of overhyping the result. Yes, you won the game and the bragging rights that went with it, but you won the game in overtime after a controversial end of regulation on your home court. Your victory was NOT a convincing show of power. For your team, which has been in Division I for about 25 years, to win this narrow victory over us with our much shorter tenure in the upper Division I does not exactly show overwhelming superiority. It's like a 25-year old beating a 7-year old in a fist fight and then bragging about it.

That "collection of talented individuals" came within two points of making it to the NCAA Final Four, and if that had been the case, then UAlbany would have been competitive against all three out of four teams that made it to the Final Four that it played this year. Your Syracuse never made it out of the first round this year. Siena did not even play anyone really good this year. You and your cohorts always try to spin the facts to your advantage.

Yes, let's be realistic. UAlbany fans are very aware of the downsides of our previous season, as well as the heights of our achievements. Yes, all America East people were aware of the relatively low comparison this year to other leagues. Posters on our league board constantly made comments to that effect. However, UAlbany played the best teams in the country very competitively, including the top two teams of the tournament, in addition to perennial power UConn, and we played them all competitively. We remember those games, too. The best Siena could play this last season was Syracuse, which did not even end up in the top 30. And please don't play the old record about not winning those games. We played better against the top 2 teams in the country than you did against Syracuse. UAlbany fans are very realistic about how we played this year. Are you? It seems to me that Siena fans should be a lot more humble about its recent past than you are, and by that I mean a record only two seasons ago of only six wins. That's shameful, considering the long tradition and history of Siena in Division !. Please remember your humble past, too!

I take Tony's prognostications about UAlbany with a grain of salt, and my diet restrictions don't allow for extra sodium. I just remember how he predicted that VCU would "wipe the floor" with UAlbany and that we would be destroyed by UConn. I'm just happy our team just went out and did its thing, particularly the last part of the season when it counts the most.

It looks like it was a good move by UA not to get involved in the MAAC/Siena exempt event. They can't even get 6 teams when they originally sought eight teams. 14744[/snapback] From the way I read that quotation from the Siena site, it appears to me that Siena was not able to get even three other teams to commit to the tournament. That number is far removed from the six teams - or better yet, eight - teams that would have comprised the tournament originally envisioned. This situation disturbs me. It wasn't just UAlbany that scuttled plans for this event in the coming season. Hardly any other school was interested, either. Very little enthusiasm for this event was ever really generated. In the meantime, over on the Siena forum, UAlbany had to endure a host of incriminations, insults, slanders, etc., from the majority of those who decided to post on the topic. Little respect was shown to our school that might happen to have its own schedule already set for the time in question or our own wishes. Some posters over there, of course, were able to see our point of view and/or not see the dire need to host this event. To me, a lot of these insulting posts were therefore unnecessary. UAlbany served as the scapegoat for the failure of this event to ignite the college basketball world. I will repeat that I personally had no strong feelings on the basic concept of such a tournament. It just wasn't going to work this coming season, and a lot of hard feelings were caused unnecessarily.

The news below was just posted on the Siena forum. "It appears that the Exempt Event is, at best, on life support as of today. When push came to shove, UNH failed to commit and no Patriot League team stepped up either. That left Siena and Akron and the decision was made by Siena to pursue other scheduling options. If the other organizers can resurrect things and Siena and the arena are still available, perhaps this will change, but I wouldn't count on it. On the plus side, there are only two games left to fill and interest from teams in the A10 and MVC as well as the upper tier of the Ivy." If true, it appears to me that this idea was rather doomed from the start. I just don't think there was enough lead time to organize this event properly.

I'm wondering how our late-season appearances will affect the race for the league's Commissioner's Cup. I think that BU will probably still win the competition, but I think our late run will make the final results much closer. (I'm actually just too lazy to figure it out on my own.)

Seeing so many students in the RACC an hour before the AE final was absolutely awesome! (Especially knowing that 800 of them had been waiting up to 36 hours beforehand.) And they weren't just sitting there quietly but on their feet supporting their team. Jamar Wilson boasted that he wanted to turn UAlbany into a basketball school. That event certainly boosted that effort, and I'm with you when I say I hope it happens, too. I wonder how Vermont fans and team members felt when they saw the partisan UAlbany crowd. It would be interesting to know their feelings. Maybe it was old hat to them. I know they had experienced three years of wonderful, exciting basketball in their state just before our run this year, but I'm still curious.

Dane Pound, What kind of improvements do you recommend for the RACC? I can easily imagine the conversion of more seats to chairback, but no other improvements to the arena itself come to mind. Or are you thinking of the concession area? How do you envision the expansion of the RACC? Always interesting to see your posts, and it's great to be discussing this aspect of UAlbany basketball. It is a definite sign of the program's improvement and potential over time.

Combine a bake sale with your car wash. You can also sell candy at the event. Customers need to do something while the vehicle is being washed. Why not eat?

Gorvy, Thanks for your reply on the tournament sponsorship. Your answer certainly clears up a question I had on previous discussions on the nature of the event. Thanks for the time to provide your reply.

I'm not going to get into the blame game here on the lack of success this tournament seems to be having. The NCAA simply made the decision to offer this type of tournament too late for many teams to organize an event for next season. Many teams have scheduled too many games even years in advance to organize this type of tournament. On this point, Gorvy is very much correct. Kudos to Brown for not simply succumbing to this tournament idea and swallowing it whole. Kudos to him for trying to make reasonable accommodations to allow our participation. He is merely doing what is best for UAlbany. I don't understand why this tournament is being labeled in some quarters a "MAAC event." It is my understanding that various teams from a single conference may participate in this type of tournament in the same year; the conference cannot send multiple representatives to the same tournament. So why is this a "MAAC event" and not merely a "Siena event?" There has been considerable discussion on the Siena site about the Saints' schedule for the coming year. The school seems to be having difficulties with getting games for next season. Who is to blame for this problem so late in the year? Most of the discussion seems to be centered on not being able to find opponents with decent RPI's, while Siena has to commit to brand new D I teams. Since UAlbany, in relative infancy at our level of competition, was able to play name schools last season, such as Florida, San Diego State, and UCLA, why is Siena having so much trouble? While I'm not dismissing the type of tournament that was attempted this year per se, I'm glad we're not participating in it this year. As others here have posted, one of the sacrifices of our participation in the tournament would have been a weekend game against Siena. My opinion is only that, but I would think that a packed arena on a weekend against our archrival would generate more interest in the Capital District and on the national scene than a multiple-game underattended tournament. Just a couple observations on this topic.

As just reported on the Siena site: "I heard today that getting commitments from enough teams has become an issue. Many teams were already scheduled to play games during the weekend when the event is to be held at the Pepsi, and finding new dates that work for moving those games can be a problem. We should know for sure by Wednesday, one way or the other." Perhaps this event will not occur this coming season at all.