Basketball Hall of Fame To Host Hawks, Bobcats
MAAC Sports
EDISON, NJ – The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame will help celebrate the Metro Atlantic Conference’s two newest members by hosting “Monmouth University Day” on August 19 and “Quinnipiac University Day” on August 20. Both events are part of the Hall of Fame’s “60 Days of Summer,” which features 60 consecutive days of family-oriented interactive museum program.
On Monday, August 19, the Hall of Fame will host a contingent from Monmouth University, including men’s basketball coach King Rice and women’s basketball Jenny Palmateer and members of the staffs. King and Palmateer and their staffs will conduct a skills clinic at Hall’s “Jerry Colangelo Court of Dreams” on “Monmouth University Day” from 1:00-2:30 p.m. Coaches and student-athletes will be available for autographs and photos following event. The clinic is free and guests of the museum are encouraged to participate.
Rice, a former standout point guard at North Carolina who led the 1990-91 Tar Heels to the Final Four, will enter his second year as head coach at Monmouth. Rice had served as an assistant at such top programs as Vanderbilt, Oregon and Providence before taking over the Hawks’ program. Palmateer will begin her third season as head coach of the Hawks’ women’s program. She was a two-time captain at North Carolina State before beginning her coaching career, serving as an assistant at Seton Hall and Virginia, in addition to her alma mater.
On Tuesday, August 20, Quinnipiac men’s basketball head coach Tom Moore and women’s head coach Tricia Fabbri and members of their staffs will host a similar skills clinic on the “Court of Dreams” from 1:00-2:30. The clinic is free and guests of the museum are encouraged to participate, and coaches and student-athletes will be available following the clinic for autographs and photos.
Moore will enter his seventh season as Quinnipiac’s head coach, and has guided the Bobcats to at least 15 wins each year, including 20-plus win seasons in 2009-10 and 2010-11. Prior to his appointment at Quinnipiac, Moore was a top assistant for Hall of Fame coach Jim Calhoun at Connecticut for 13 years. Fabbri has served as head women’s coach at Quinnipiac for 18 years, and last year guided the Bobcats to a 30-3 mark. She was an outstanding student-athlete at Fairfield (as Tricia Sacca), and was named to the MAAC’s 25th Anniversary Team.
Both schools will also host by-invitation receptions at “The MAAC Experience,” the MAAC’s 600-square foot interactive exhibit which prominently showcases the league’s 11-institutions, as well as historical artifacts and memorabilia from the conference’s 32 seasons of competition. Both Monmouth and Quinnipiac will also debut their display cases, alongside the cases of fellow MAAC members.
The “MAAC Experience” display also features the well-received video “A Day In the Life,” which features 11 men’s and women’s basketball student-athletes, one from each of the MAAC’s institutions, giving viewers an insight into a typical day in their lives. The video was filmed on the league’s 11 campuses and features many rising stars who will compete in the MAAC this season, including 6-5 sophomore forward Tyrone O’Garro of Monmouth and 5-8 junior guard Jasmine Martin of Quinnipiac.