KeaneyBlue - The URI Basketball Forum

Wasn't really sure where to share this link. Just bought one of these March Madness shirts!

http://ramszone.uri.edu/MerchDetail.asp ... M1tsxiZO1t

UPDATED 03/18/17

These are some of the side effects of winning the A-10 Championship and getting to the NCAA:

Improved Recruiting
Improved OOC Scheduling
Increased/Improved game TV exposure
Increased Share of NCAA monies from A-10
Increased Fundraising
Increased Advertising Revenue
Increased Media Broadcast Rights value
Increased future Ticket Sales
Increased Program Spending (recruiting budget/salaries/travel)
Increased Fan Support & Enthusiasm
Increased pride in URI by students, alumni, staff, and state residents
Increased Media Coverage
Increased Merchandise Sales
Increased Applications

Can you add "pissed off most of PCs fanbase" to this list of positives??

.....all positive going forward....

currently trending on twitter, just more exposure for the team

5 more days of exposure would have been huge....but with the way this game ended...we're getting a lot of talk even with a loss.

URI Rams hoop is back on the map now at least

I wanted to share some thoughts after an amazing weekend in Sacramento - I'm not a Rhode Island graduate, but I've been a lifelong fan as a Wakefield/Kingston resident thanks in part to the success of the 1998 team. I was 12 years old when I attended Jim Harrick basketball camp and had Lamar Odom as a coach - fast forward 17 years and I'm getting a selfie with Jim Harrick and Lamar Odom while wearing the same warmup they sported during the 1998 magical run. It was truly an incredible weekend.

Notes from Sacramento:
I attended the games with my wifes Uncle and Cousin - they were incredibly impressed with our program - from the players, coaches, fanbase, and "celebrity" support (Odom, Bobby Hurley, Harrick, etc.)
Our fans far exceeded my expectations - we were the loud and proud - it was truly a sight to see
I spoke with Thorr at the rally - he made sure to find me since we've had some back and forth on twitter since I purchased the 1998 warm up - we're so lucky to have him leading the charge with a President that supports his every decision
Tom Ryan gave a nice speech as well - glad he came to support the University
Lamar Odom must have snapped 1000 pictures over the weekend. Not only did he show up for the first game, but he willingly came back and supported the team again with his good friend Jim Harrick
I didn't get a chance to speak with Will Martell (Keaney Blue) or Marquis Jones, but big props to them for showing up and supporting the team - I think some others may have come as well, but I didn't see them.
From the stands you could see Hassan was hurting - it pained him not being in there in the end, but he gave absolutely everything he had out there

Other notes:
Jared Terrell has a chance to do something really special next year
I'm not sure there will be a team in the country with more backcourt experience than Rhode Island in 2018
Cyril will fill nicely for Hassan - I'm hopeful the added exposure we received will help us land one more front court piece that will be immediate help (JUCO or Grad Transfer)

Overall:
Hurley and Co. - thank you. The sleeping giant is awake. Lets do it again next year.

Just to be clear - Cyril, at least next year, won't match what Hassan provided for this program, BUT I think our other pieces will be enough to mask our deficiency.

Hassan is a legend. What he brought to our program will not be replicated anytime soon.

Thanks for a tremendous 4 years, Hass!

most importantly is this weekend was a monumental leap forward in building the Rhode Island Rams brand. We are known now among casual fans. They know our coach, they know our players and they know our game. We also got some pretty glowing reviews from national media, including Barkley and Kenny Anderson on TBS.

We are now known as a skilled, deep, physical defense type of team. We have a national identity.

So I just got back from 5 days in Vegas for the whole first weekend of the tournament, and although it is purely anecdotal, I am comfortable saying without a doubt that we are back on the national radar as has been mentioned above. There is a pretty good cross section of people in Vegas and on the first March Madness weekend a good sampling of college hoops fans both casual and more hardcore and I can't tell you how many people stopped me when they saw my Rhody gear to tell me they were rooting for us and how much they liked watching our team. And I am willing to bet most of these people knew close to nothing about this program before Friday. Everyone knows who the Rams are now and what we're all about, and gained a lot of respect from hoops fans in the process.

Guys, we have a thread about next season's prospects and team composition.

This thread is about the impact to the program from increased brand awareness, donations, ticket sales, etc etc we anticipate will come.

I moved some recent posts about next year's players to the 2017-18 season thread.

http://www.providencejournal.com/sports ... s-momentum

giovanni wrote:https://t.co/KNt9BelV6J

Nice find, thanks for posting that!

Great article by Koch, talks about everything that's basically said on this board on what we want to see in the future and how great these past few weeks have felt.

As a fanbase it's really time for us to step up when it comes to attendance. I expect, and the team deserves, to set the record for average attendance per game next year, there's really no excuse and it starts opening night. This past year we set the Ryan Center record for opening night attendance when 6052 showed up to play Dartmouth. We should do better than that to see two banners go up into the rafters.

That said, this thread so far has focused on what fans can do for the athletic department, but I think we should also look at what more the athletic department can do. I was seeing support during this run in all corners of the state. Too often it feels like the athletic department behaves like they're the University of Southern Rhode Island. The athletic department needs to work hard between now and November and use this opportunity to engage the entire state and behave like a true state flagship. These might not be potential season ticket holders, but they're potential mini plan buyers who can be convinced to come to Kingston and help fill the Ryan Center on weekends. And if you get more fans in northern Rhode Island, you'll generate more sponsors in northern Rhode Island as well

RR2, the athletic dept. has been hamstrung by fiscal problems that we all know about.

This NCAAT money and money that comes with the increased exposure [read: donations] should help along those lines.

They won't be stretched so thin anymore, hopefully....and be able to do far more when it comes to marketing, promotions, etc.

As Blue Man said, "A rising tide raises all boats".

That's my hope

Name recognition would be nice. On my flight back from the tourney I was talking with what little voice I had left to the young lady seated next to me, and I told her that I was at the Tourney. She says "Oh, I went to Creighton, they were in the NCAA tournament, but they lost to Providence." I went on to explain that they lost to the University of Rhode Island and that Providence is the capital city. I said PC lost in the play-in game...

RIFan wrote:Name recognition would be nice. On my flight back from the tourney I was talking with what little voice I had left to the young lady seated next to me, and I told her that I was at the Tourney. She says "Oh, I went to Creighton, they were in the NCAA tournament, but they lost to Providence." I went on to explain that they lost to the University of Rhode Island and that Providence is the capital City. I said PC lost in the play-in game...

I would have requested to move seats

I am real excited about this program right now. Since I live in Minnesota, supporting the program with attendance or tickets isn't really an option, so I've decided to donate to the program.

Can someone explain to me if its better to donate to the RAMS Fund or the Fast Break on the donation link?

PillPushr wrote:I am real excited about this program right now. Since I live in Minnesota, supporting the program with attendance or tickets isn't really an option, so I've decided to donate to the program.

Can someone explain to me if its better to donate to the RAMS Fund or the Fast Break on the donation link?

It depends on where you want your money to go. As I mentioned above, the RAMS Fund is a general athletics fund that they can deploy wherever they feel they have the most pressing or immediate need; the Fast Break fund is a basketball-specific fund and will only be used for the benefit of the basketball program.

If anyone is concerned about their Priority Points within the Athletic Dept, donate to RAMS Fund to get double the points.

Sorry if this is a dense question, I am a young alum, first time donating. But what are priority points?

theblueram wrote:Being in the tournament raises the national awareness of the school. Kids in high school usually have no idea where they want to go. The added attention should result in an increase in applications. That's revenue to the school right there. Plus it expands the pool of applicants, thus giving the school the opportunity to be more selective. This in turn raises the profile of the academics of the school.

I'm interested mostly in tall, talented students.

ATPTourFan wrote:If anyone is concerned about their Priority Points within the Athletic Dept, donate to RAMS Fund to get double the points.

I kind of went back and forth about this when I did it, but figured being on the other side of the country I wouldn't be getting much use out of priority points anyway so opted to make sure my money went to basketball.

adam914 wrote:So I just got back from 5 days in Vegas for the whole first weekend of the tournament, and although it is purely anecdotal, I am comfortable saying without a doubt that we are back on the national radar as has been mentioned above. There is a pretty good cross section of people in Vegas and on the first March Madness weekend a good sampling of college hoops fans both casual and more hardcore and I can't tell you how many people stopped me when they saw my Rhody gear to tell me they were rooting for us and how much they liked watching our team. And I am willing to bet most of these people knew close to nothing about this program before Friday. Everyone knows who the Rams are now and what we're all about, and gained a lot of respect from hoops fans in the process.

I just got back from 8 days in Denver/Copper Mountain and had a similar experience. Talked to people both in the bars and on the chairlifts and many people were rooting for us. Definitely was cool to hear, prior to this season I'm sure most of those people didn't even know we had a D1 basketball program.

People know who we are. We just played UNC in the semis of the NIT not too long ago. And older folks surely remember the 98 run. We weren't a cinderella but we took one down. People probably remember us most by fouls against us not being called in critical end of game moments.

theblueram wrote:People know who we are. We just played UNC in the semis of the NIT not too long ago. And older folks surely remember the 98 run. We weren't a cinderella but we took one down. People probably remember us most by fouls against us not being called in critical end of game moments.

Well, us older folks remember 78 and 88. Young adults remember 98....

[quote="theblueram"]People know who we are. We just played UNC in the semis of the NIT not too long ago. And older folks surely remember the 98 run. We weren't a cinderella but we took one down. People probably remember us most by fouls against us not being called in critical end of game moments.[/quot

Down here in Virginia everyone was rooting for us against Oregon.
All the people I've talked to around here said they thought Rhody was forreal.
Team on the rise.
Made my heart warm

Billyboy78 wrote:

theblueram wrote:People know who we are. We just played UNC in the semis of the NIT not too long ago. And older folks surely remember the 98 run. We weren't a cinderella but we took one down. People probably remember us most by fouls against us not being called in critical end of game moments.

Well, us older folks remember 78 and 88. Young adults remember 98....

hah! I was in Germany watching in 88 on AFN. Won the pool by picking Rhody to go to the Sweet 16. Back then everyone said who is Rhode Island!

Gonzaga's tourney impact on the school

http://www.espn.com/blog/collegebasketb ... y-flourish

All ships rise.

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