The official times have been announced on the empire8.com site:

http://www.empire8.com/MBasket-Over.shtml

Men:

  2/28:   2pm  RIT vs. Utica
              4pm Ithaca vs. (Nazareth / St. John Fisher)
  3/1:     1pm  Final

Women:

  2/27:  6pm  Ithaca vs. St. John Fisher
             8pm  Utica vs. Stevens
  2/28:  7pm  Final

Quote from: magicman on February 21, 2009, 08:56:08 PM
Last night I went to the E8 Men's Basketball site and saw this:

Date: Feb. 27-28, 2009
Location: Top Seed


I then gave that info to D3Hoops and it was posted on the link mentioned above.

Today an article on the E8 website and also article on Ithaca's website both state the semifinals are on Sat. Feb 28th and finals on Sun. March 1st. I'll inform D3Hoops of the change.

The press release for today's Ithaca women's game says that the women's tournament will be Friday/Saturday.  I guess the men's tournament was moved to Saturday/Sunday in anticipation of Ithaca hosting both tournaments.

I thought the semis were going to be on the 28th as well, but the empire8 link I posted above has this:

Date: Feb. 27-28, 2009
Location: Top Seed

This thread here has 27th-28th too: 
   http://www.d3boards.com/index.php?topic=6127.msg1036404#msg1036404

Has there been an official announcement of what days the men's Empire 8 semi-finals and finals will be held?  Ithaca's press release says semi-finals are on 2/28 while the empire8.com site says the semis are on 2/27.

http://www.empire8.com/MBasket-Over.shtml

Empire 8 preseason coaches poll:  (http://www.empire8.com/News/20081110-1.shtml)

2008 Empire 8 Men's Basketball Preseason Coaches Poll
1.   Ithaca College (7 first-place votes)                     63 points
2.   Nazareth College (1)                                         56
3.   Utica College (1)                                              48
4.   St. John Fisher College                                      41
5.   Stevens Institute of Technology                         36
6.   Rochester Institute of Technology                      35
7.   Hartwick College                                              20
8.   Elmira College                                                  16
9.   Alfred University                                                9

Quote from: haterinthehouse on May 20, 2008, 01:17:07 PM
Which NYU assistant got the job at Elmira? Torgalski? If so, not a bad choice.  Randie has plenty of experience and has had a great amount of success in upstate NY.  His background involves playing at the UR, coaching at Hamilton, and I believe he has been the top assistant at NYU. 

The official press release is here. 

UC women lost 83-76.  From livestats it looks like they made a comeback from being down by 18 points 2nd half but they ran out of time.

Quote from: Caz Bombers on March 07, 2008, 08:09:46 PM

Quote from: magicman on March 07, 2008, 08:04:24 PM
Nazareth loses to Rhode Island College 77-73.

Well that was fun.  When's football season.

Well the E8 is still alive on the womens side for now.   Utica is leading 33-31 at the half vs. #11 Kean.

Quote from: thebear on March 06, 2008, 06:54:25 PM
Hamilton follows NESCAC guidelines.  They used to only play in the ECAC's.  Once NESCAC decided to play in the NCAA's they took the ECAC off the table, or at least that's what I've been told.

Quote from: met_fan on March 06, 2008, 06:55:20 PM
NESCAC teams don't go the ECACs, and even though Hamilton doesn't currently play a NESCAC schedule in basketball, they still go by the same rules.  That is my understanding, anyway.

Thanks for the clarification.  The team capsule on Hamilton's basketball web site talks about the 10 ECAC Upstate titles that they've won so I had assumed they still participated in the ECAC tournament.

Quote from: poker33 on March 06, 2008, 03:10:23 PM
Does anyone know why Hamilton was not selected for the ECAC tourney?  Did they choose not to participate?  It seems with a 17-9 record, better than almost every other team in ECAC, they would have been chosen.

I imagine they either declined or were not eligible due to the 19 week season NCAA rule.   They are not on the list of ECAC declared teams (http://ecac.org/championships/team/mbkb/2007-08/DIII_Men-s_Bball.pdf).

I thought at first Vassar got the shaft as well, but the ECAC selection criteria is as follows:

The committee will review all of the following primary criteria (in priority order):

1. Divisional winning percentage, head-to-head results, results against common opponents;
2. Strength-of-schedule to be determined in part by results against teams selected into the NCAA or already in the tournament; and
3. Regular season conference standings

Fisher and Vassar's common opponents:

  Vassar split with Hobart W 78-73, L 56-57;  Fisher lost to Hobart 80-84 
  Vassar beat Hartwick 58-55;  Fisher beat Hartwick 69-59, 70-61


I imagine it therefore came down to strength of schedule, which gives Fisher a slight edge.  If Vassar wins Wednesday, then it's a long trip home late Wednesday night followed by another long trip back up to the Rochester area on Saturday.

Quote from: gobombers15 on March 03, 2008, 10:00:45 PM
Cyclone, per one of the ICTV reports during IC's semi-final game vs Fisher, Ithaca was not eligible to compete in the ECAC's this season. Apparently, the story goes, Ithaca came back a day early from Thanksgiving Break to start practice. The one extra practice constituted an "extra week" of practice and, thus, the team went over the maximum allowed weeks of practices as regulated by the ECAC. This is what the report said so I apologize for any inaccuracies, complete or partial.
...

The NCAA Div. 3 manual states the season limit is 19 (consecutive?) weeks from the start of the first pre-season practice, excluding and NCAA tournament games/practice time.  So it would seem that if a team chooses to start practice the first allowable day (October 15th) then they're already excluding themselves from the ECAC tournament since the 19th week ended on March 2nd.  That's a tough choice for a coach to decide whether or not to sacrifice 1 week of pre-season practice in order to be eligible for the ECAC tournament.

It looks like Stevens picked up the #1 seed in the ECAC Metro division and will host the College of Staten Island Wednesday at 8pm.   The Fisher/Vassar game is at 8pm as well.   

Fisher and Vassar's common opponents:

  Vassar split with Hobart W 78-73, L 56-57;  Fisher lost to Hobart 80-84 
  Vassar beat Hartwick 58-55;  Fisher beat Hartwick 69-59, 70-61

Quote from: mefor3again on February 29, 2008, 10:12:20 PM
Does anyone know what schools would be going to the ECAC's from the E8?
...

ECAC declaration info is here:   http://ecac.org/championships/team/mbkb/2007-08/Declaration%20Information

You can see the declared teams from the link on the right side of the page.

Stevens, Fisher, Naz and Elmira are on the list for the E8, although it looks like Stevens would be playing in the Metro region.