The 2008 Philly Classic -- Fleshing Out the Details

The A10 conference released many of their member schedules en mass yesterday, which, aside from confirming circulating rumors of a game with the Fordham Rams (scheduled for 11/17 in the Pav) and fixing the date for Villanova's Big 5 game against St. Joseph's (scheduled for 12/11), confirmed rumors circulating among Rhode Island Ram fans from last month. The Rams announced they will open their Philly Classic run against Monmouth on the road and then host Hartford before heading down to the Palestra to play rounds 3 and 4. Along with the Purple Eagles of Niagara (out of the MAAC), who also released their OOC schedule yesterday, much of the speculation about the brackets and preliminary round games have been confirmed. The eight team field has been divided into two brackets of four teams each...

Bracket A:		Bracket B:
Hartford		Penn State
Monmouth		Rhode Island
Niagara		Towson
NJIT		Villanova

Preliminary round games (two of them) are scheduled to be hosted by some of the teams in the field and played at sites (largely campus) outside of Philadelphia. The third round will be played in the Palestra on Friday November 28. Round 4 games (round 3 winners vs winners, losers vs losers) will be played on Saturday November 29. The schedule for the preliminary rounds games...

Home	Visitor	Date
Niagara	Towson	11/16/2008
Penn State	NJIT	11/17/2008
Villanova	Niagara	11/19/2008
Monmouth	Rhode Island	11/20/2008
Penn State	Hartford	11/20/2008
Towson	NJIT	11/24/2008
Rhode Island	Hartford	11/25/2008
Villanova	Monmouth	TBA

Between Hartford and Rhode Island we can tease out the November 28 games at the Palestra as well. Rhode Island announced the Rams will face the Nittany Lions of the Big Ten. The Hartford Hawks schedule shows their round 3 opponent will be the NJIT Highlanders. That means Monmouth and Niagara will face-off in the other "Bracket A" game, while Villanova and Towson will play the other "Bracket B" game.