2009 America East/Northeast Conference Challenge

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We recently saw the Big East and Big Ten set up an interconference matchups of games in Florida but we recently found out the America East and the Northeast conference will be playing a similar tournament from March 27th-29th. The three teams from the America East conference will visit the Northeast conference members over the three days where they will play single games on Friday and Sunday with a doubleheader on Saturday.

The three teams from America East will be Hartford, Binghamton, and Vermont. They will all visit Sacred Heart, Quinnipiac, and Central Connecticut State. The matchups on Friday are the following: Binghamton @ Quinnipiac, Hartford @ Central Connecticut State, and Vermont @ Sacred Heart. Saturdays matchups will be all doubleheaders with Binghamton @ Central Connecticut State, Hartford @ Sacred Heart, and Vermont @ Quinnipiac. The Sunday matchups are Binghamton @ Sacred Heart, Hartford @ Quinnipiac, and Vermont @ Central Connecticut State.

We were able to ask Binghamton head coach Tim Sinicki about the opportunity to take part in the challenge and he stated the following “This is an outstanding opportunity to compete against three quality programs (Quinnipiac, Central Connecticut and Sacred Heart) that we normally don’t see during the season. All three programs are led by outstanding coaches who work extremely hard on the road recruiting and I am sure will have their programs ready to play hard.”

We think that this challenge is a great thing for some of these programs to get some non-conference weekend games against comparable programs in the northeast. The CBB will try to make it to a few of the games in this challenge during the 2009 season to give you some first hand accounts.

FULL TOURNEY SCHEDULE

Friday March 27
Binghamton vs. Quinnipiac
Hartford vs. Central Connecticut State
Vermont vs. Sacred Heart

Saturday March 28
Binghamton vs. Central Connecticut State (DH)
Hartford vs. Sacred Heart (DH)
Vermont vs. Quinnipiac (DH)

Sunday March 29
Binghamton vs. Sacred Heart
Hartford vs. Quinnipiac
Vermont vs. Central Connecticut State