BOSTON — After a season that saw seven of its men’s and women’s basketball teams reach the postseason and with many top players returning, the America East Conference announced its 2015-16 league schedules on Friday morning. The slate will feature 144 games, the majority of which can be seen on AmericaEast.TV, as teams vie for positioning ahead of the conference tournaments.
The men’s and women’s seasons will consist of 72 regular-season contests each with all games taking place over a nine-week stretch in January and February. For the 11th season in a row, each team will play a 16-game, double round-robin schedule, which prioritizes television opportunities, competitive equity and reduction of missed class time for student-athletes.
The regular-season slates will decide the seeding and matchups for the America East Championships. After a successful first year that saw near-record attendance numbers, the America East Men’s Basketball Playoffs will be played at campus sites throughout for the second straight year. The early rounds of the women’s tournament, the America East Women’s Basketball Championship, will be held at Binghamton University’s Events Center for the second year in a row, with the championship game at the highest remaining seed.
Schedule Highlights
Men
- Playoff seeding is critical again this year as the higher seed hosts each round of the America East Playoffs. Home teams were 6-1 in tournament games last year.
- The schedule begins on January 6 with four contests, including New England rivals Maine and Vermont meeting for the 132nd time.
- Albany and Vermont, which have combined to win the 10 of the last 13 America East titles and both made postseason appearances last season, first play on Jan. 9 at Vermont with the second matchup taking place Feb. 6 in Albany.
- A rematch of the last two America East championship games occurs on Jan. 22 when Albany, which won its third-straight league title a year ago, visits Stony Brook. Albany beat the Seawolves, 51-50, on Peter Hooley's last-second three-pointer.
- Hooley and his Great Danes and two-time America East Player of the Year Jameel Warney and his Seawolves square off in Albany on Feb. 17.
- Stony Brook and Vermont, winners of five of the last six regular-season titles, meet Jan. 30 in Burlington and will close out the season facing off on Long Island on Feb. 27.
- New Hampshire, which returns the bulk of its roster from a team that won 19 games a year ago, faces Albany Jan. 12 and Feb. 11. The two teams' three meetings last year were decided by a total of five points.
Women
- The women’s slate kicks off on Jan. 2 with a single game as Vermont visits UMBC.
- Co-regular season champions from a year ago, Albany and Maine, play Jan. 16 in Albany and Feb. 14 at Maine.
- Both the Great Danes and Black Bears return the bulk of their rosters, including stars and first-team all-conference standouts Shereesha Richards and Liz Wood. Richards, an All-American last year, won her second-straight America East Player of the Year award while Wood shared Defensive Player of the Year honors with Richards.
- Maine and New Hampshire square off Jan. 18 at Lundholm Gym. The Wildcats handed the Black Bears one of their two conference defeats last year. The return meeting is Feb. 8 at Maine.
- A rematch of last year's America East Championship game between Albany and Hartford, which have combined to win nine conference titles since 2002, takes place Jan. 31 at Hartford and Feb. 28 at Albany to close out the season. The Great Danes beat the Hawks, 84-75, to win their fourth straight league title last year.
The men’s regular season concludes on Feb. 27 while the women’s ends on Feb. 28. On both sides Albany will play Hartford, Binghamton takes on Maine, UMBC battles UNH and Stony Brook takes on Vermont.
Following the conclusion of the regular seasons, the 2015 America East tournaments commence. The Men’s Basketball Playoffs kick off with quarterfinal action on Wednesday, March 2 at the sites of the top four seeds. The semifinals will take place Monday, March 7 at the two highest remaining seeds. Meanwhile the women’s tournament kicks off in Binghamton with quarterfinal and semifinal action March 5-6.
Both championship games will be played at the highest remaining seed in each tournament with the women’s title game on March 11 and the men’s on March 12. Both will be nationally televised on ESPN networks. The league’s full television schedule will be announced at a later date.
America East is coming off a season in which 44 percent of the conference’s eligible teams reached the postseason, including both of Albany’s programs, which became the second school to capture both basketball crowns three seasons in a row. Stony Brook and Vermont men both played in the CBI with the Catamounts advancing all the way to the semifinals. New Hampshire also made its first-ever posteason appearance in the CIT.
Three women’s programs reached the postseason a year ago, including Albany’s fourth-straight NCAA appearance. The Great Danes were joined by Maine (WNIT) and Stony Brook (WBI) extending America East’s streak of years with multiple teams in the postseason to 10, which is tied for the longest in the nation among non-FBS conferences.