Keith Cothran scored 16 points, leading four Rhode Island players in double-figure scoring as the Rams ran past Brown to win their season opener 78-57 on Wednesday night.

The jump from Division II to Division I is not supposed to be an easy one, but the Bryant University basketball team certainly seems to be handling it well.

OK, here’s the question: If you were ranking the University of Rhode Island as a “basketball school,” where would it be in the Atlantic 10? We know it wouldn’t be in the top three, not with Xavier, Temple and Dayton.

Jimmy Baron, the decorated former University of Rhode Island guard, is one of six recipients of the ECAC Robbins Scholar-Athlete Award, the ECAC announced Tuesday.

With an eye toward trips to Notre Dame and the Carrier Dome, or perhaps a home showdown with Georgetown or Louisville, Keno Davis spent a large chunk of his afternoon Thursday putting a few of his Providence College basketball players through workouts at Alumni Hall.

There will be no added pressure on Stephanie Cardamone when the 2009-10 high school basketball season rolls around this winter. Cardamone, a Freehold Township High School senior, recently made a verbal commitment to attend and play basketball at Bryant University in Springfield, R.I.

PHILLY– Providence just missed out on being the eighth Big East team in the NCAA Tournament last year and ended up falling to Miami in the first round of the NIT. A year later, the Friars have lost eight seniors to graduation and return only five players from last year’s team. “I think we’re going to have a very talented team next year,” Providence coach Keno Davis said last month. “We’ve got a chance to be better in almost all areas of the game but where we are going to have some growing pains is going to be that we’re so young with seven new faces on the team and really nine when you count a couple guys who redshirted last year. Really we have three returning players with experience.” Those three are senior guards Brian McKenzie and Sharaud Curry and junior guard Marshon Brooks.

SPRINGFIELD - Which AAU basketball teams north of the mid-Atlantic are the best of the best? That will be decided by Sunday. The Best of the Best Boys & Girls Basketball Tournaments will be held throughout Springfield Saturday and Sunday, with 48 teams in nine divisions vying for championships at the elite first-year event. "Every team that's coming to the event this weekend either had to finish high in their state tournament, a super regional, or another very high-level type of tournament," said Colin Tabb, General Manager for BasketBull, LLC, which is coordinating the tournament. "All these teams have credentials that back up their invitation."

INDIANAPOLIS -- Instant replay has been approved starting next season for last-second shots in high school basketball championship games. The rule change by the National Federation of State High School Associations allows replay for review of a shot attempt at the end of the fourth quarter or overtime, and only when the last-second shot would affect the outcome of the game. The rule is not mandatory and leaves the decision whether to use it to each state association.

t was a team that won almost three times as many games as it lost, but for some people that lofty win-loss percentage wasn’t the most impressive feature of the Portsmouth High boys basketball team this season. “This was the kind of team I’d be happy to have my own two sons play on and a coach whom I’d be happy to have my sons play for,” wrote a basketball game official on in his nomination of the Patriots for the Dick Reynolds Team Sportsmanship award. It’s that combination of quality play in a sportsmanlike manner that earned the Mike Lunney-coached Patriots the 2009 boys winter sports Reynolds Award.

Kahiem Seawright has been added to the list of 64 seniors nationally who will participate in the 57th annual Portsmouth Invitational from Wednesday to Sarturday. The Portsmouth Invitational a showcase for outstanding men’s basketball players in their senior year of college. Seawright joins teammate Jimmy Baron and five other players from the Atlantic 10 Conference — Ahmad Nivins of Saint Joseph’s, Duquesne’s Aaron Jackson, Massachusetts’ Chris Lowe and Tony Gaffney, and B.J. Raymond of Xavier — who will take participate.

DETROIT - Boston University's search for a men's basketball coach is entering its final stages, and according to multiple sources at BU and the University of Tennessee, Volunteers associate head coach Tony Jones appears to be the choice. Barring any last-minute snags in a deal that is expected to be completed in the next few days, an official announcement could come next week. "They are talking and working on a few things

Dominic Strada, president of the Marshwood High baseball boosters, knows small businesses in Eliot and South Berwick are struggling. He also knows the school's athletic programs in some cases count on support from those businesses to stay afloat. "With many varsity sports at the high school level along with Little League and other youth sports in the community, smaller businesses don't have the budgets to donate to everyone," said Strada, who lives in South Berwick. So this year the Marshwood baseball boosters are allowing local businesses to put an ad in the baseball program at no cost.