The 2009-10 college basketball season is right around the corner and the America East Men's Basketball Prospectus is now available for
download. The 27-page document is available in PDF format and may take
a few minutes to download to your computer.
The America
East will debut the conference's first-ever men's and women's
basketball Digital Media Guides in partnership with ICS closer to the
start of the 2009-10 basketball season.
The 2008-09 season was highlighted by:
- America East improved 10 spots in the conference RPI to No. 17. Only four times in conference history has the RPI been higher.
- Binghamton won its first America East Championship and advanced to the NCAA Tournament. Vermont was chosen to the College Basketball Invitational. It marked the fifth time since 2003 that the conference had multiple teams in the postseason.
- Binghamton and UMBC played for the America East Championship before a packed house at the Events Center and a national television audience on ESPN2. The crowd of 5,348 was the second-largest in conference championship history while the tournament attendance of 19,558 was the largest since 2001.
- Vermont's Marcus Blakely became just the fifth player in league history to be named Kevin Roberson America East Player of the Year in consecutive seasons. He also was the Defensive Player of the Year and an AP All-American for the second straight year.
- America East ranked 7th of 31 Division I conferences in men's basketball single-season Academic Progress Rate (APR)
The following is some of what to watch for during the 2009-10 America East men's basketball season:
- The
conference will hold its first-ever America East combined men's and
women's championship on the University of Hartford campus from March
4-7, 2010. The conference champion will be crowned Saturday, March 13 on the campus of the highest seed remaining. Binghamton, who will try to become the fourth reigning champion to successfully defend its crown since 2004.
- Six All-Conference selections return, including three first-teamers in Blakely and Boston University teammates John Holland and Corey Lowe. Hartford's Joe Zeglinski, a first-team All-America East honoree two seasons ago, returns from an ankle injury that limited him to just 10 games last year. He is also one of three players that return as career 1,000-point scorers (Lowe- 1,334; Blakely- 1,268; Zeglinski-1,099).
- America East teams will appear a minimum of six times on the ESPN family of networks in 2009-10, highlighted by the broadcast of the America East Championship on ESPN2 for the 23rd straight season. Binghamton and Hartford will also appear on ESPN 2 this season with trips to Pittsburgh (Nov. 17) and Kentucky (Dec. 29), respectively. For the third straight year the league will have a conference game nationally televised on ESPNU. Albany will also appear twice on ESPNU, opening its season at Syracuse (Nov. 9) and facing defending champion North Carolina (Dec. 30).
- Other
marquee non-conference match-ups include Boston University and Maine facing UConn on Dec. 2 and 22, respectively, UMBC traveling to Virginia Tech on Dec. 22, New Hampshire playing at Maryland (Nov. 20) and Pittsburgh (Dec. 4) , Stony Brook taking on instate-rival St. John's on Dec. 3 and Vermont visiting a pair of Big East schools, Rutgers on Nov. 22 and Providence on Nov. 24.