Yahoo’s The Dagger got to know Ryan Rossiter:

JE: Siena suffered some tough losses early in the season, but now you guys are rolling. Is the level of competition more manageable in the MAAC or are you guys a better team now?

RR: I think we’re a better team than we were early in the season. I don’t think we were all on the same page then and we had some tough losses as a result. Our core group knew what we were doing together, but we did add six or seven new faces to the team this year. That slowed things down while we introduced everything to everyone again. That got us a little sideways early in the season, but everyone’s on the same page and clicking now.

More BracketBusters coverage, check out my BracketBuster piece on RushTheCourt.net.

The BracketBuster matchups are out, and as promised, RTC is here with some analysis of some of the top games!  Five Colonial Athletic Association teams lead the pack into these February weekend matchups. The Western Athletic Conference drew four bids and the Missouri Valley drew three.  One problem with the BracketBusters? Five of the television games will be on ESPNU, which of course means they’re not available on ESPN360.  However I’d say there are five games where you must, to quote another piece here, “quit your job and divorce your wife if that’s what it takes to watch this game live.”

The Indy Star has it covered with Siena-Butler on February 20th and had an interesting note:

On his radio show Monday night, Butler coach Brad Stevens said he has often “picked the brain” of Siena coach Fran McCaffery, 50, a former Notre Dame assistant. McCaffery has led three programs — Siena, North Carolina-Greensboro and Lehigh — to the NCAA Tournament.

The Times Union says Siena is just trying to win and Coach Fran McCaffery scoffed at the notion that Siena is anything like Gonzaga ‘East’:

“It makes me laugh when people want to compare us to Gonzaga, who charters planes,” he said. “They spend more money on one plane flight than my recruiting budget. Yet we’re supposed to be Gonzaga.  “I don’t look at anybody else. I take what they give me here, try to maximize that and try to beat everybody on our schedule. That’s it.”

One of my favorites and on the lighter side: If you Google “Siena Butler” there is a person on facebook with the same name. You wonder how conflicted they must be for this game, if they follow college basketball.