The Siena and University at Albany men’s basketball teams will both play at the University of Massachusetts of the Atlantic 10 next season.

UAlbany will open its season Nov. 6 against UMass in Amherst, a source confirmed. CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein first tweeted the matchup without mentioning a date.

It will be the second straight year UAlbany plays at UMass, where coach Dwayne Killings began his college playing career as a walk-on. The Great Danes lost 87-73 in Amherst last Dec. 5.

The Saints will take on the Minutemen on Saturday, Dec. 30 at Mullins Center, according to a tweet from Rocco Miller, a college basketball analyst who specializes in scheduling. Siena head coach Carmen Maciariello said the school can’t announce it because they don’t have all the contracts.

Siena hasn’t played UMass since Nov. 14, 2014, a 95-87 Minuteman victory in Amherst.

The Minutemen went 15-16 overall last season, 6-12 in the A10, in their first year under head coach Frank Martin, who previously coached at South Carolina and Kansas State.

Siena hires Farrell

Siena is hiring Andy Farrell, who spent the past six years at Dayton, as a men’s basketball assistant coach.

With the Flyers, Farrell served as a special assistant to head coach Anthony Grant and recruiting coordinator.

“Thrilled to be headed to Albany, NY to be joining the @SienaMBB coaching staff!” Farrell tweeted Friday.

He fills the final assistant coaching vacancy on Maciariello’s staff, joining assistants Bobby Castagna and Derek Brooks, who was recently promoted from director of basketball operations. Jonathan Pickett, previously special assistant to Maciariello, moves into the operations spot.

Farrell, a Dayton, Ohio native and Dayton graduate, served as a student manager for the men’s basketball team. He headed to VCU and worked there as a graduate assistant coach and video coordinator under Grant.

After that, Farrell worked at DePaul, Long-wood and Southwest Mississippi Community College before returning to Dayton in 2017.

UAlbany signings

In the past week, the UAlbany men’s program announced the signings of 6-1 point guard Sebastian Thomas, 6-5 forward Muneer Newton and 6-3 guard Tyler Bertram.

Thomas spent the previous two years at the University of Rhode Island. The Providence, R.I. native played in 31 games last year and averaged 5.9 points, 2.8 assists and 2.3 rebounds.

“I am super excited to get started at UAlbany and go to work,” Thomas said in a news release. “I have already built a good relationship with both the staff and team.

Newton, from Philadelphia, averaged 10.9 points and 8.2 rebounds last season at William Penn, an NAIA school in Oskaloosa, Iowa. He played two seasons there.

“Muneer immediately enhances our athletic ability in the front court with his explosive and determined effort on both offense and defense,” Killings said in a news release.

Bertram, from Cooperstown, has played for Alabama-Birmingham, Binghamton and UNC-Charlotte. He averaged 9.7 points with Binghamton from 2020-22 for UAlbany’s America East foe.

The NCAA transfer portal is basically just a list of names, with athletes sorted by sport along with school names and some contact information.

Not even a position is given for the hundreds of players who go in and out.

“It kind of just leaves you blank,” said AK Mogulla, director of player personnel for football at Auburn, which has added more than a half dozen transfers, including former Michigan State quarterback Payton Thorne, in the last month.

Scouting the portal and recruiting transfers is now a vital part of building a program and it moves fast. To sift through a mountain of names, athletic departments have NFL-style personnel departments that have turned to data and statistics provided by online analytics companies.

With so much information available, programs are not just evaluating who is in the portal. While scouting their opponents and opponents of opponents, personnel staffers are on the lookout for players who might someday transfer — just in case.

“The big (progams) now are much more proactive with their approach to scouring other teams’ rosters for competitive advantages — or for potentially recruiting them out,” said Drew Borland, the founder of SportSource Analytics.

He said SSA provides data packages and online tools to more than 85 Division I schools assessing thousands of players. The UCReport is another service schools use and so is Tracking Football.

Mogulla, who worked for three NFL teams before shifting to college football in 2020 with Georgia Tech, followed new Tigers head coach Hugh Freeze to Auburn.

Like most schools, Auburn has one staff member whose primary duty is monitoring portal activity, Mogulla said. Even before the transfer periods start, personnel staffers are tracking news reports and social media chatter looking for clues about which players will be on the move.

Recruiting players before their names are in the portal violates NCAA rules against tampering.

RPI athletic director Lee McElroy, who shepherded the University at Albany into Division I before leading the Engineers program, is retiring.

New RPI president Martin Schmidt announced Thursday on his web page McElroy will retire effective June 30.

“Let us all thank Lee for his leadership in creating a robust, successful, team-oriented Department of Athletics,” Schmidt wrote. “We extend to Lee and his family best wishes in retirement.”

Efforts to reach McElroy were unsuccessful.

UAlbany hired McElroy as athletic director in July 2000 as the school was entering its second season as a Division I program. He spent 14 years with the Great Danes. During his tenure, UAlbany joined the America East Conference and won 74 league titles and made 31 NCAA postseason appearances.

UAlbany also built Casey Stadium, its football and men’s lacrosse home, and became a football-only member of the Colonial Athletic Association.

“He was outstanding,” said Great Danes men’s lacrosse coach Scott Marr, hired a month after McElroy in 2000. “I loved working for him. I pretty much owe my existence in Division I as a head coach to him. Just a wonderful person. Him and (his wife) Karen both are just loving and really nurtured me the beginning of my career. Just a great guy.”

McElroy announced his retirement from UAlbany in 2014. But RPI hired him the following year to guide its program that is Division III in all sports except for the Division I men’s and women’s hockey teams. RPI football went to the NCAA quarterfinals in 2018 and 2021.

McElroy hired current head men’s hockey coach Dave Smith, who is entering his sixth season.

“First and foremost, I think, his experience in higher ed and athletics and where he’s been in his life provided him the skills,” Smith said. “He is a terrific mentor. His ability to connect with people and navigate the athletics not only at RPI but across the country is exceptional. I really enjoy speaking with him. We share a lot of similar values in terms of family and connection and commitment to people and I think from the beginning with Lee, we both realized that.”

McElroy was honored in June 2015 with the Minority Opportunities Athletic Association Distinguished Service Award for his dedication in promoting the understanding and appreciation of diversity. In 2020, he was the recipient of A Community of Excellence award from Saint Rose, where he was on the board of trustees, for his commitment, service, and contributions to Saint Rose and the Capital Region.

He received LifePath’s Third Age Achievement Award in April 2022 for significant contributions to the community after turning 60.

Prior to coming to the Capital Region, McElroy served as athletic director at American University and California State University-Sacramento and as associate athletic director at the University of Houston.

McElroy, a 1970 UCLA graduate, played linebacker for the Bruins.

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