FanHouse KennyHasbrouck

Christmas week tournaments find teams in the strangest places. Rhode Island, for example, is celebrating their first Top 25 ranking in nearly a decade far from New England. They are in Corpus Christi for the Islander Classic and will meet Georgia Southern in the finals today after routing Eastern Michigan 92-75.

The Rams shot the lights out and even shot 19-of-21 from the line, a strong performance for sometimes charity stripe-challenged URI. Four Rams scored in double figures, led by Will Daniels and Jimmy Baron's 18 apiece. Daniels carved up the Eagles inside while Baron and his four threes took care of the perimeter. Baron also added three steals, the Rams had 13 overall, and it was an easy ride to 12-1 for the Rams.

Eastern has lost four of five games and looks like they'll be a bystander in the MAC-tion. They were hitting their threes early on and looked like they'd make a game of it, but fell to 9-of-25 from the floor in the second half. Today's URI opponent, Georgia Southern, has a 9-2 record but no win better than UAB on their record. Their best shot at an upset is if Louis Graham, their leading scorer, can outplay Daniels inside but even if he does, URI is deeper and should come back from Corpus Christi as champions.

Elsewhere on the mid major hardcourts:

Every year Cinderella captures our hearts in the NCAA Tournament. They begin fittings for their glass slippers in November, though. They Do Not Come From Nowhere introduces you to the teams that will be busting brackets nationwide come March.

Future coaches and players for the Stanford basketball program will want to pay close attention to that headline. The most embarrassing loss in school history occurred in 1989 when the third-seeded, Todd Lichti-led Cardinal were upset by Siena in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Yesterday's 79-67 rout in Albany may not be as painful but you can imagine it will be a long time before Stanford agrees to head to New York's capital for another date with the Saints.

For Siena, yesterday was their first win against a ranked team since that momentous 1989 victory. They've kept a pretty low profile since then. Their biggest contribution to college hoops has been Paul Hewitt, who parleyed three good years into the Georgia Tech job. They will have at least one more chance to add to their hit list on January 3 when they travel to Memphis to take on John Calipari's highly regarded squad. Another win seems unlikely in that spot but the Saints could get their first NCAA bid since 2002 if they can handle business in the MAAC the way they handled Stanford.