On campus

The bloodletting in college basketball has begun as Longwood, Marist, Drake, Ball State and Buffalo will all have new coaches roaming the sidelines for the 2013-2014 season.

The latest of the moves was Buffalo’s Reggie Witherspoon, who was let go on Friday. Witherspoon ran the Bison program for 14 years. Longwood coach Mike Gillian also enjoyed a long tenure as the head man for 10 years.

The...

Russ Smith and his Louisville teammates got to meet former President Bill Clinton Thursday night after their 74-55 Big East quarterfinal victory over Villanova, but that was a mere footnote to Smith on the day one of the most important men he’d ever met died.

As a faithful alum of Archbishop Molloy, Smith placed a friendly call to the athletic offices of the Queens school on Thursday morning...

The referees might have succeeded in quieting down Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin when they hit him with a technical during the Bearcats’ 62-43 loss to Georgetown in the Big East quarterfinals Thursday afternoon, but his Irish passion came out in the postgame press conference when asked for his thoughts on the impending Big East breakup.

Cronin got right to the point. “The whole thing is tragic,”...

St. John’s coach Steve Lavin found it difficult to reflect on the end of the traditional Big East conference in the immediate aftermath of the Red Storm’s 66-53 second-round loss to Villanova in the league tournament Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden. And really, Lavin has just three years coaching in the league and sat out most of last season recovering from prostate cancer surgery.

But...

Quinnipiac still sits atop the Metro Poll, followed by Marist, Fordham and Princeton, who all held their spots from last week. Sacred Heart moved up two places after advancing to the NEC semifinal, while Army dropped to sixth after a loss in the Patriot League tournament. St. John’s fell one place after bowing out of the Big East tournament in the quarterfinals, while Iona stayed at No. 8. Fairfield...

In his second season at Providence, Ed Cooley finally began to see dividends as the Friars produced a 7-2 stretch run and eighth-place finish in the Big East heading into the conference tournament. The Friars couldn’t sustain it in a 61-44 second-round loss to Cincinnati Wednesday afternoon at Madison Square Garden, and with an NCAA bid out of the question, Cooley made it clear his 17-14 team has...

Everyone on St. John’s was crushed when Marquette’s Vander Blue drove for the winning layup in the Golden Eagles' 69-67 overtime victory in the regular-season finale Saturday at Madison Square Garden. But no one took it harder than Sir’Dominic Pointer.

Ordinarily, Pointer (No. 15 pictured) would have been assigned to cover Blue, but he was suspended for a game for throwing a...

What a difference a conference tournament championship can make. Iona got a lot of respect from the voters and vaulted five places to first after knocking off Manhattan for the MAAC Tournament championship. Stony Brook fell to second after losing a heartbreaker to Albany in an America East semifinal. LIU jumped two places to third after advancing to the NEC championship game.

Wagner, Princeton...

East Coast Conference women’s basketball champion Dowling (25-3) will face NYIT (23-5) Friday at Bentley in the NCAA East Region Tournament.

LIU Post (19-9) will face top-seeded Bentley (28-1).

Dowling, the third seed, has defeated sixth-seeded NYIT three times, including a 72-49 victory Sunday in the conference championship. The bracket also includes Stonehill-Franklin Pierce and Holy...

Over the past four seasons, no one in America East has been better or more consistent in the regular season than Steve Pikiell’s Stony Brook Seawolves. You could look it up.

SBU and Vermont each are 49-15 in the conference during that span, but the Seawolves won three outright titles to one for the Catamounts. The conference tournament and the battle for the automatic NCAA bid, however, is...