March 2, 2008
KINGSTON, R.I. - After finishing the 2007-08 regular season with a 5-9 mark in Atlantic 10 play (12-17 overall) the Rhode Island women's basketball team enters the conference championship as the No. 10 seed and will face seventh-seeded St. Bonaventure on Friday, March 7, at 4 p.m. The tournament will take place in Philadelphia, at the Alumni Memorial Fieldhouse on the campus of Saint Joseph's University.
URI tied Massachusetts and Saint Louis for 10th place in the league standings and - due to the A-10 tiebreaking procedures - was awarded the No. 10 seed while SLU enters the tournament as the No. 11 seed and UMass is No. 12.
No. 1 Temple (19-11, 12-2 A-10), No. 2 George Washington (24-5, 12-2 A-10), No. 3 Xavier (21-8, 11-3 A-10) and No. 4 Charlotte (18-12, 9-5 A-10) all receive first-round byes and will not play until Saturday's quarterfinals. Temple will face the winner of No. 9 Duquesne (15-14, 6-8 A-10) and No. 8 Richmond (13-16, 6-8 A-10) at noon. Charlotte will take on the winner of Friday's No. 5 Dayton (23-7, 9-5 A-10) vs. No. 12 UMass (13-16, 5-9 A-10) contest at 2 p.m. GW faces the winner of the URI/SBU game at 4 p.m., followed by Xavier's meeting with the winner of the SLU vs. No. 6 Saint Joseph's game at 6 p.m.
URI is 22-19 all-time against the Bonnies, having won nine of the last ten meetings between the two teams. Most recently, senior Safi Mojidi (Silver Spring, Md.) paced the Rams with a game-high 30 points en route to a 56-48 victory over St. Bonaventure earlier this season at the Ryan Center. Rhody is 14-6 all-time when facing the Bonnies at home, 7-13 in St. Bonaventure, N.Y. and 1-0 on neutral courts.
Should the Rams advance to Sunday's semifinals, they would play in the second game (2:30 p.m.) following the first semifinal matchup which is set for 11 a.m. CSTV will televise both semifinal contests.
Monday's championship game, which determines the A-10's representative in the NCAA Tournament, will be televised by ESPN2 at 4 p.m.
For additional information on the 2008 Atlantic 10 Women's Basketball Championship, or to follow the games live via Gametracker, please click here.
