At URI, there are over 16 intramural sports for students to participate in. Intramural Basketball is one of the most popular intramural sports at URI with 65 teams in the men’s league and 11 more teams in the co-rec league. Now you may be asking who I am, and why am I writing about intramural basketball? My name is John Almy, and I just started as the Sports Writer here at Campus Recreation. I am a sophomore studying journalism and have played basketball my whole life. Currently the acting captain of my IM basketball team and prior participant in the 5v5 men’s league last year as well. Being a basketball maniac, Intramural Spring basketball is my favorite time of the year because it is a great way to have fun and get exercise with friends. Don’t be intimidated to join a team either, even if you aren’t the most experienced basketball player there is still room for everyone in IM basketball.
How to Join
The home for everything Intramural sports is located on the IM leagues website. This website can be found here, then click on the login button in the top right corner. Then it will take you to a new screen where it asks for your University, once you choose URI you will be brought to another new screen where two login options pop up: member login and guest login. You’ll want to click on member login then use your URI email and password. Once you’re logged in, you can click on the Intramural’s tab in the top left where all Intramural Leagues can be found. Next to each league it shows the registration window where it will either say Open in a green box or Closed in a gray box. The Open green box is now open for registration next to all Spring 2 sports leagues until March 26th at 7 p.m!
If you aren’t able to sign up before the season started or couldn’t find a team, there is a free agent tab under all of the sports leagues. This is where you can submit yourself to be picked up by an active team. However, once playoffs start, teams cannot pick up free agents any more.
I joined a Fraternity my first semester on campus last year, and made a team with 12 of my brothers that I was rushing with. This made finding a team to play on very easy for me as we would play basketball together a lot. However, last season with 12 people on the team we found it difficult to find playing time for everyone during the fast paced games. This led to our team splitting in half the next year so everyone could play more the next season. This was a great decision and led to a very fun intramural season. My advice based on my experiences would be make sure you don’t have too many people on your team so everyone can participate. As far as finding people to play with, clubs and Greek life is a great way to meet new people. If you aren’t in any clubs or Greek life, heading over to the Mackal field house when the basketball hoops are down is a great way to meet other basketball players.
IM Basketball
The format of this highly sought after intramural sports league is a five game season followed by a playoff tournament. In order for a team to be eligible for playoffs, they must win at least 3 of their 5 games and receive a sportsmanship grade average of at least 2.5 out of a 4-point rating system.
If you are already on a team, you might get the chance to be playing in the playoffs. So, how do the IM basketball playoffs work? A bracket is created of all the teams that met the requirements mentioned earlier. These teams will then be seeded based on their regular season records and begin facing off. The bracket is single elimination, which means if you lose, you’re out. This creates a competitive atmosphere for every playoff game. The playoff tournament started on March 3rd and ends with the championship game tonight! The entire playoff schedule can be found in the playoff bracket seen below and live streaming is available here to watch the game.
How did my team do this season? We had a strong regular season finishing with a 4-1 record that landed us as the 14 seed in the tournament. We had a crucial loss in our last game of the regular season that plummeted our seeding and led to a tough matchup in the first round of playoffs. We ended up losing this game, and the team we lost to advanced all the way to the semifinals. Although our season didn’t end how we hoped it would, we still had lots of fun and learned a lot for next season.
What does it take to win the championship?
I had the chance to talk to the captain of last year’s winning team, Christian Carmosino. Carmosino, who is a senior at URI, has a lot of IM basketball experience under his belt. When asked what it took to win last year, Carmosino said, “Honestly it took a team effort, we all had to play together to win. Obviously, we have a lot of talent and we just need to put that to good use.”
It’s safe to say that Carmosino’s team put their talent to good use by beating the back to back champion team, Big Burr in the championship last season. My biggest question for Christian was how did his championship winning team come together? Carmosino shared, “We’re all in the same fraternity on campus, Pi Kappa Alpha, and we come to the courts all the time and play… we put together the kids that played and just made a good team out of it.” “Good team” is a vast understatement for this group considering being the last team standing of 60+ teams is no easy feat. Carmonsino and his Pi Kappa Alpha brothers aren’t done yet, as they just advanced to the semi-finals of this year’s playoff tournament.
By John Almy