With the end of the spring signing period a day away, Rider finalized its 2009-10 roster today by adding 6-4 guard Jonathan Thompson. The Broncs' other scholarship will go to UNLV transfer DeShawn Mitchell, who faxed his letter of intent to Rider today.

The school will likely formally announce the signings tomorrow.

Tommy Dempsey told me the Broncs are happy to have a Thompson and a Johnson in this recruiting class, the Johnson being point guard Carl Johnson, who committed earlier this month after Matt Griffin decided to transfer.

Center Dara Nd-Ezuma -- a project from Nigeria via Life Center Academy in Burlington Twp. -- and shooting guard Jhamar Youngblood -- a transfer from Monmouth who sat out last year in accordance with NCAA rules -- fill out the Broncs' roster.

Mitchell, who the Broncs initially recruited out of Monmouth Academy, will sit out next year and be eligible in 2010-11.

Greetings from my apartment, where after a two-month recess, I bring you this long-delayed post.

The Blog, I’m happy to say, enjoyed what I thought was its best two-week stretch of its existence before and during (but especially during) the MAAC tournament. Then, however, came way too much down time, but I’ve got a few Rider tidbits to pass along, good wireless connection and an unexpected post-work surge of energy, so now is as good a time as any to get back into this.

While The Blog was on vacation, Siena gave Louisville a scare but was eliminated in the second round, North Carolina, Penn State, Oregon State and Old Dominion won tournament championships, Jim Calhoun got into all sorts of hot water at UConn but announced he’d return next year anyway, Ed Cooley got free air time on FOX at a Red Sox-Yankees game, and some French guys came up with this video.

Now that we’re caught up on all that …

The spring signing period ends tomorrow, May 20, and Rider enters the day, officially, with THREE scholarships to give.

How?

As was reported earlier this month in The Trentonian, Matt Griffin has decided to transfer. Griffin, a sophomore point guard, told Tommy Dempsey he was concerned about his prospects for playing time moving forward. There’s no word yet on where Griffin will end up. … Dempsey quickly filled the vacated scholarship with Carl Johnson, a Philly product by way of St. Thomas More Prep in Connecticut.

Center Dara Nd-Ezuma is on board for next year, as is Jhamaar Youngblood, who’s eligible after sitting out last year as a transfer from Monmouth.

But the Broncs have released point guard SirChristian Williams from his letter of intent, opening up another scholarship.

According to a source close to the program, Williams wanted to go to a school where he could get significant playing time as a freshman. Since Rider has four returning starters and Youngblood waiting in the wings to fill Harris Mansell’s spot, that kind of playing time wasn’t available in Lawrenceville.

So Williams re-opened his recruitment, Rider reopened its recruiting, and the Broncs have until the end of the day tomorrow to wrap up their 2009-10 roster.

There were improbable 3-pointers, multiple overtimes, and moments that MAAC fans will never forget.

Only this time, it wasn't the MAAC tournament, it wasn't Niagara-Rider, and it WAS something of which every college hoops fan in the country took note.

I was at work, unable to watch Siena's thrilling, 74-72 double overtime victory over Ohio State until the final minutes of regulation. But I saw all the best parts, heard Ronald Moore's interview on Mad Dog Radio in the car on the way home, then I flipped on my TV and listened to an array of talking heads breaking down the Saints' win.

Hundreds of mid-major coaches are sitting at home right now, wanting what Fran McCaffery has: a team that's in the Round of 32 for the second straight year, soaking up national attention and moving toward long-term status in the upper echelon of mid-major hoops.

As I type this, there are countless high school freshmen and sophomores -- the must-have recruits of the future -- who hear "Siena" and think "NCAA tournament."

The Saints are miles away from being Gonzaga. Gonzaga wasn't the Gonzaga we now know -- big enough to be a major conference team in a mid-major conference -- until close to a decade of doing damage in the NCAA tournament.

But programs like the Zags' are built not through winning road games in December, but through winning in March, when everything's on the line and everyone's watching.

For two Marches now, Siena has won with people watching. This time, the Saints didn't take anyone by surprise or slip under the radar.

They were considered worthy of Ohio State's attention and of the nation's respect. Then they did what you have to do if you're going to build something big: They showed all that attention and all that respect was justified.

***
My bracket in the MAAC group on ESPN.com is in bad shape. I've lost four Sweet 16 teams and two Elite Eight teams (Wake Forsest and Florida State). The one thing that would make it look good is if Siena rewards me and shocks Louisville.

So the questions for you, MAAC maniacs, are these:

1) What are the Saints chances?

2) If they're going to pull it off, how are they going to do it?

3) And since it's a fun topic of conversation: Where does Siena's recent success rank among the best stories in MAAC history?

***
East Tennessee earned Fairfield some good pub, in an odd way: Pitt's margin of victory over ETSU was the smallest by a No. 1 seed over a 16 seed since the Stags gave North Carolina a scare in 1997.

***
Lastly, this video has the shot that inspired Bill Raftery describe Ronald Moore's "garden variety" onions.

The good news for the MAAC is that if Siena beats Ohio State and advances to the Round of 32 for the second straight year, THAT is what a whole lot of people will remember about the league's postseason showing.

The bad news is the conference went 0-for-2 last night, with Niagara falling to Rhode Island in the first round of the NIT and Rider getting manhandled by Liberty in the CIT.

As Chris Lang of the Lynchburg News & Advance writes in today's Trentonian, Rider trailed by 22 in the first half and was never in it after that.

The Broncs finished 19-13. The Trentonian's web site has a poll up asking what grade fans would give their season. For what it's worth, I'd probably give it a B+ (which isn't an option on the poll, so I settled for B). Regardless of Ryan Thompson's health status, last night wasn't a good way to go out, and no team wants its conference season to end in the league tournament semifinals.

But the body of work was pretty good. You can talk about the lackluster non-conference strength of schedule, but plenty of MAAC teams would sign up for 19 wins and a postseason appearance, regardless of who they beat to get some of those wins and regardless of what postseason tournament they played in.

And next year should be interesting for a number of reasons. Rider's schedule will include a game at Kentucky and an appearance in a preseason tournament in Cancun, so there will be non-conference tests and opportunities to get their RPI into the top 100.

The Broncs return every contributor except for Harris Mansell and will be picked no lower than third in the MAAC behind Siena and Niagara.

As for Niagara, winning at least one game in the NIT would have been fitting given the year the Purple Eagles had, which included 26 wins, an RPI in the 50s, a signature BracketBuster win and a trip to the MAAC final.

The Eagles, though, couldn't hang on to a first-half lead and couldn't overcome sixth-seeded URI, which got 10 second-half points from Keheim Seawright and will play second-seeded Penn State in the second round.

Losing Benson Egemonye will hurt. He had the biggest impact this year of any big guy, and that kind of play is tough to find in the MAAC. But everyone else is back, and that gives Joe Mihalich a lot to work with.

That leaves us with Siena.

It's hard to quantify what an NCAA win means compared to a win in any postseason tournament, but I think the average college hoops fan can tell you Siena won a game in the Dance last year and has no idea who won the NIT (coincidently, it was Ohio State, the Saints' first-round opponent).

Let's get some chatter going. How would you grade Rider's and Niagara's seasons? And who ya got in the Siena-Ohio State game and why?

Postseason play begins tonight.

That means many things to many people and, I suspect, nothing to some people, since the NCAA Round of 64 is still two days away.

In the MAAC, though, two of the league's three postseason teams play tonight, with Niagara hosting URI in the NIT and Rider playing at Liberty in the CIT.

The Purple Eagles are 4 1/2-points favorites, the Broncs 4-point underdogs.

If you're dying for NCAA tournament hoops, Moorehead State and Alabama State tip off at 7 p.m. in the "opening round" game in Dayton. Morehead State is a 3 1/2-point favorite to advance to a first-round date with Louisville and of course, a second-round clash with Siena. (OK, so that isn't likely to happen, but technically, it's not IMPOSSIBLE).

Here in Jersey, the buzz is about unbeaten UConn heading to the Trenton regional in the NCAA women's tournament.

And we've got college hockey, with Princeton soon heading to the Times Union Center for the ECAC semifinals.

I'm playing sports editor for the week and will not be in Lynchburg tonight. Apologies to Rider fans for not being able to make the trip. If the Broncs win, they'll play in the quarterfinals next Monday, and I'll do my best to get there.

One last betting note: Siena is a 500-to-1 longshot to win the national championship. If you think those odds are long, they're nothing compared to the 9999-to-1 odds for Alabama State, Binghamton, Chattanooga, Cal State Northridge, ETSU, Morehaed State, Morgan State, Radford and Robert Morris.

Thanks to Princeton blogging machine Jon Solomon, someone on the blog took care of posting the final two MAAC postseason selections -- Niagara as a 3 seed in the NIT and Rider as a road team in the CollegeInsider tournament -- while I was on deadline in the office.

So thanks, Jon, for taking care of that. As always, thanks to everyone for commenting. It seems that in the spirit of March Madness, reader McAff Attack -- a frequent commenter and frequent critic of mine -- even softened up and neglected to insult me.

And hey, if you're a MAAC fan, why not be in a (relatively) friendly mood?

Siena is representing the conference as a 9 seed and could make it two NCAA tournament wins in two years by beating Ohio State in Dayton. Niagara has a home game against URI and a realistic chance to get to the Garden for the NIT Final Four if it plays well. And although they will still be endlessly ridiculed in the comments section, Rider is going to the postseason for the second straight year.

I talked to Tommy Dempsey about an hour after the Broncs accepted the CIT bid, and Dempsey said the Broncs were "in the mix" for the CBI, which at the time hadn't finished its field. Rider got an offer from the CIT to play at Liberty, didn't have an invite to the CBI at the time, and accepted the invitation to travel to Lynchburg, Va. Tuesday night for a date with Seth Curry and the Flames.

So would Rider have gotten a CBI bid if it waited?

A look at the CBI field reveals that, as many people predicted, Rick Giles and Co. settled for some pretty weak teams who were willing to fork over $60,000 to host first-round games. The field includes Oregon State (156) and Wichita State (158), both of whom have less impressive resumes than most of the CIT field. Because of the financial disparity between the teams, those two teams have the least impressive resumes but are hosting games while the likes of UTEP (RPI 80) and Vermont (97) are on the road.

Since Rider wouldn't have hosted a game, it's likely a CBI invite would never have come. Aside from St. John's (RPI 141) -- a team included because of its name recognition and not its resume -- the CBI road team with the lowest RPI is Boise State, which at 110 is 13 spots ahead of Rider.

That isn't to say Rider didn't have a shot, and all postseason discussions have to come with the disclaimer that RPI is a general indicator of relative strength and not an ABSOLUTE indicator of strength. But the point remains: if you remove the teams who wrote a $60K check to host a game and you remove St. John's because of the name recognition factor, there isn't a CBI team whose resume is clearly inferior to Rider's.

With all that said -- and tournament inclusion speculation is always a fun thing to do -- it's tough to argue it makes much of a difference. The CBI clearly has a stronger field (average RPI of 109 to the CIT's 131) but the difference between the fields is minimal compared to the gap between the NIT and CBI (and of course, the NCAA and NIT).

So if you're a Broncs fan, you can wake up today knowing your team's season isn't over. For at least some fans, I suspect that will be enough.

If you're a Purple Eagles fan, you can wake up today knowing that with four starters coming back next year, the NIT could provide a nice springboard for a team that could be in at-large discussions next year.

And if you're a Siena fan, you can wake up today and finalize your travel plans for Dayton.

The NCAA tournament committee awarded Siena a No. 9 seed and matched the Saints against Big 10 tournament runner-up Ohio State in Dayton, Ohio. A win would give Siena a second-round game against top-seeded Louisville.