KeaneyBlue - The URI Basketball Forum

I didn't want to post this, but I was just shocked when I saw him. He looks like he gained about 20 pounds of pure muscle! Unreal. Delete the thread when a few people have seen it, just wanted to point out how big he's gotten.

http://www.iupathletics.com/roster.aspx?path=mbball&

Wow... he looks like he is going to be a force now still needs the skills to match.

And he still stinks. 5 boards a game and coming off the bench in DII with that size.

adam914 wrote:And he still stinks. 5 boards a game and coming off the bench in DII with that size.

Still miss his three pointer from freshman year.

Looks like he put on around 10-15 lbs, good job Blake I'm glad he's finally getting in the gym.

If only he had heart.

Billy Baron was Canisius' leading scorer in the Griffs easy 83-65 win at UMBC tonight. Billy got 19 points on 6-10 FG and was 6-6 on the free throw line. Canisuis moves its record to 4-1.

Here we go Golden Griffs here we go !!!!

Billy is averaging 6 assists. Must be playing the point?

I would argue that BB's departure was a short-term gain as well, slowing the development of our program into playing a NCAA tournament style of basketball. DH didn't need matador Billy waving his red cape on defense. Had BB stayed at UVA he would be a junior at the end of the bench on a team that isn't going anywhere - losers to GM and Delaware this year. BB belongs at the Canisius level with or without his dad. He is not an NCAA tournament caliber player and can only get there on a team that wins a weak conference.

GIve it up.

Rhody72 wrote:I would argue that BB's departure was a short-term gain as well

Totally disagree. Billy Baron would have been a big part of this year's team. His scoring and free throw shooting on this team would have probably turned a few of our losses into wins (specifically SHU, Loyola, and GMU). He would have been a steadying influence that made good decisions at the end of games. My view on Billy was that he was very much needed for the short term. I felt he would have been much less valuable to the team in his senior year (Hurley yr 2) as Hurley intergrated his own players.

My fear was that some improvement was needed in the win loss record this season to keep the Hurley momentum rolling. I don't see that happening with this team as it will be hard pressed just to match the win total from last year. There was a lot of excitment and buzz when Dan was hired. I fear that the casual fan will look at things from the macro level of wins and losses for this year and be less than excited about the 2013-14 season. I had hoped that Dan could get the program to slightly better its record and show demonstratable improvement. This could then be used to promote the program the following year and help increase season tickets. I now think that the casual fan general public will view things as having stalled. I don't see a big upturn in season ticket sales for 2013-14 given how this year is likely to play out. If Danny Hurley wants big crowds next season, he is going to have start out the year with a stong run and sell tickets on an individual game basis off the rising excitement. That is a tougher and more challenging route to sell tickets than is the case with pre-purchased full and mini season ticket packages.

RF1 wrote:My fear was that some improvement was needed in the win loss record this season to keep the Hurley momentum rolling. I don't see that happening with this team as it will be hard pressed just to match the win total from last year. There was a lot of excitment and buzz when Dan was hired. I fear that the casual fan will look at things from the macro level of wins and losses for this year and be less than excited about the 2013-14 season. I had hoped that Dan could get the program to slightly better its record and show demonstratable improvement. This could then be used to promote the program the following year and help increase season tickets. I now think that the casual fan general public will view things as having stalled. I don't see a big upturn in season ticket sales for 2013-14 given how this year is likely to play out. If Danny Hurley wants big crowds next season, he is going to have start out the year with a stong run and sell tickets on an individual game basis off the rising excitement. That is a tougher and more challenging route to sell tickets than is the case with pre-purchased full and mini season ticket packages.

You don't think that the program has shown demonstrable improvement? You must not be watching the games.

The casual fans will come when the wins come. There were no, and are no real expectations for this year; both real fans and the administration know that.

Thank you '05.
We knew wins would be sparse, given the roster.
Our games are exciting.
The progress (except on free throws) is noticable game to game.
The fairweather fans, and the ones who view the games and an
event to be seen at, will come back when this program wins.
I look at the season ticket level seats being empty, and I wonder
where all the blowhards who said they'd come to games when Baron was gone, disappeared to?

URI_05 wrote:

RF1 wrote:My fear was that some improvement was needed in the win loss record this season to keep the Hurley momentum rolling. I don't see that happening with this team as it will be hard pressed just to match the win total from last year. There was a lot of excitment and buzz when Dan was hired. I fear that the casual fan will look at things from the macro level of wins and losses for this year and be less than excited about the 2013-14 season. I had hoped that Dan could get the program to slightly better its record and show demonstratable improvement. This could then be used to promote the program the following year and help increase season tickets. I now think that the casual fan general public will view things as having stalled. I don't see a big upturn in season ticket sales for 2013-14 given how this year is likely to play out. If Danny Hurley wants big crowds next season, he is going to have start out the year with a stong run and sell tickets on an individual game basis off the rising excitement. That is a tougher and more challenging route to sell tickets than is the case with pre-purchased full and mini season ticket packages.

You don't think that the program has shown demonstrable improvement? You must not be watching the games.

The casual fans will come when the wins come. There were no, and are no real expectations for this year; both real fans and the administration know that.

Reread my post. I stated that casual fans will only look at the win loss record. They will not look at the subjective things like the team playing much harder and being in close games. That is what I meant by demonstratable improvement.

While expectations were certainly not high for this year, I feel that some momentum via wins was needed to show casual fans that things were changing and getting better. I however fear, that from that perspective, things will look the same.

In the end I agree with you, it is all about wins.

This team still has a good chance to surpass last year's win total, I truly believe this. We've all seen marked improvement from game to game and we will catch several teams that are not willing to match our intensity.

Running Ram wrote:This team still has a good chance to surpass last year's win total, I truly believe this. We've all seen marked improvement from game to game and we will catch several teams that are not willing to match our intensity.

Absolutely. No one in the A-10 has the size to torture us with inside. Plus we keep getting better. We'll see a lot of good matchups in the A-10, and we'll still see teams that are less talented than us. We could very well match all of last years wins in conference.

This isn't Jim Baron's rams...they're improving every single game.

St Joes is 1 team that will kill us inside...Aiken, Roberts and the Kanacevic will look like world beaters against our front line.

But Aiken is a good one to look at as it relates to Hare. He was highly touted, really struggled his FR year, and is now a national block leader and should be a first team all A10 this year. I believe he is a Jr.

Aiken like Hare is long and thin. Will be an interesting match up.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/hofs ... ZplG3FU9kL

Four Hofstra players arrested for running a pretty extensive burglary ring, and it looks like one of their victims was head coach Mo Cassara. Good to see Stevie Mejia wasn't involved. Say what you will about his on the court abilities, but he never came across as a punk to me.

What is it with these kids? They live a nice life as a
collegiate scholarship athletes, and just throw it away.
No perspective, I guess,

I remember Baron was in on Shaq Stokes before he signed with Hawaiii. Another hoodlum baron recruited during his waning years at URI.

Can we keep on topic here? I will likely bump some of these posts to another (existing) thread if I get some time. Maybe TruePoint or Steve can do so.

Say it aint so Hofstra U !!!

McRam wrote:Sponge signed with Florida Int University for next year. Patino's son is the coach.

We'll see!

http://fiusports.typepad.com/the-prowl/ ... ayers.html

Given the news about Hofstra, I would have suggested Holton check them out. He might have fit in well there.

I however guess it makes sense that he is going to FIU to play for Pitino Jr. Looks like little Ricky values character as much as the old man.

No mention of Holton's court case, but probably to be expected, since that looks like the official school press bureau. I wonder if it'll make it into the papers around there tough - I have no idea if anyone covers FIU regularly. His next hearing is scheduled for Dec. 11, and now that he had a D1 destination in mind, it wouldn't surprise me if we see his lawyer take a plea deal or push for a dismissal, just to get the charges out of the way.

RF1 wrote:

McRam wrote:Sponge signed with Florida Int University for next year. Patino's son is the coach.

We'll see!

http://fiusports.typepad.com/the-prowl/ ... ayers.html

Given the news about Hofstra, I would have suggested Holton check them out. He might have fit in well there.

I however guess it makes sense that he is going to FIU to play for Pitino Jr. Looks like little Ricky values character as much as the old man.

amen

Stevie is averaging 10.6 ppg and about 3 assists

Hofstra is pretty pathetic this yr, SMU rolled them

Hard to compete when a 1/3 of your roster is in jail.

ace wrote:Hard to compete when a 1/3 of your roster is in jail.

yeah, but the prison team must be awesome!

what an alley oop from ace to 74 !!!!

Akeen Richmond hit 5-10 three pointers for 17 total points in only 19 minutes off the Bench for ECU today in a very respectable 93-87 loss in front of 19,000 at North Carolina.

"We haven't really been shooting the ball all that well, but we're capable of doing that and we proved that tonight," said Akeem Richmond, who hit 5 of his 10 3-point tries. "Hopefully it carries on during the season in the other games."

Wish he had done that against UNC at the NIT for us

#4 Syracuse 35 Canisius 32 at the half

http://scores.espn.go.com/ncb/boxscore?gameId=323500183

and then the real Cuse showed up and rolled them

Richmonds stroke looked very different yesterday. He was much more fluid. He hit some deep 3s. Still streaky.

No more weird release, Sean? Is the game available online anywhere to watch? Maybe espn3.

Answered my own question. It IS available in replay form on espn3.com.

Richmond's shot always reminded me of the old 2 hand set shot. His left hand never seemed to lose contact with the ball.

Orion Outerbridge


Got voted on by the fans and coaches to play in the All-Star game on Sunday...the best Americans vs the best Europeans/Cypriots..should be a fun and entertaining game!!

Maybe the firstrow.eu site will have this game online?!

Mejia lifts Hofstra over Georgia State 52-50


HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. (AP) -- Stevie Mejia scored 17 points, including a game-winning layup with 6 seconds remaining, as Hofstra beat Georgia State 52-50 to snap an eight-game losing streak in its Colonial Athletic Association opener Monday night.

Read more at:
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/mejia-lift ... TMiUxF07YF

ATP,

Did you watch the game?

Yeah, I found it on espn3 and he does look to have straightened his stroke out quite a bit.

Good for Steve.....nice kid....nice family.....I wish him happiness..

The Classacts in the Quadangles lists Lamonte Ulmer as having signed a contract to play pro ball in Finland next season. Congrats Monte!

Love Ulmer...was always so much fun to watch. One of my favorites.

And recently in the Hartford Pro-Am...

Love it ATP!!

Wow what a summer league throw down that was !!!

Any update on Keith Cothran?

OO was at the game today sitting behind the URI bench