The Big East Conference announced today that the UConn Huskies vs West Virginia Mountaineers game scheduled for November 1^st at Rentschler Field in East Hartford, CT will kickoff at 12 Noon. The game will be televised by the Big East Network by ESPN Regional Television.

It will be available locally in Connecticut on My-TV9 (WCTX) and also on SNY in New York.

As promised, here are the links from the past two days concerning the men’s and women’s basketball programs for the UConn Huskies.

Could Elena DelleDonne be returning to UConn next season?

The New York Times has an article on Elena Delle Donne and her being burned out from playing basketball.

Jess McCormack will spend the season on the UConn bench since she can’t play or travel with the team as a transfer student.

The UConn women’s basketball team picked up a big recruit on Sunday afternoon when the nation’s top junior, Samarie Walker gave a verbal commitment to the Huskies.

Jim Fuller of the New Haven Register has a look at the states in which UConn has had players come from.

David Gillett has some video of two Jerome Dyson dunks from First Night as well as an alumni profile of Richard Hamilton.

David Borges of the New Haven Register has some notes from the men’s basketball first practice as does Mike Anthony of the Hartford Courant and Matt Stout of the Norwich Bulletin.

Mike Anthony of the Hartford Courant has a look at A.J. Price and Kemba Walker.

Kemba Walker is making friends fast at UConn.

Jim Calhoun saw flashes and flaws during the first practice.

The UConn men have started to piece it together for the 2008-09 season.

Donnell Beverly suffered a hip contusion during the first day of practice.

A.J. Price looked a bit rusty on Saturday but is ready to go for the season.

Since I wasn’t feeling well yesterday and decided to rest, I skipped the UConn Huskies news. And with me doing that, there are a ton of links to get to so I decided to split them up into a football and other UConn sports post. The basketball links for the men’s and women’s teams will follow shortly.

Be sure to take a moment and write-in Donald Brown over at ESPN.com for their Heisman Trophy voting.

Chip Malafronte of the New Haven Register as well as John Silver of the Journal Inquirer have their postgame notes from Saturday. Desmond Conner of the Hartford Courant has his as well. Conner also has thoughts on Randy Edsall’s play calling.

Speaking of his play calling, Mike DiMauro of the New London Day says it was too conservative.

Tony Ciaravino talked about the misses he had on Saturday.

Zach Frazer was feeling fuzzy after the game on Saturday.

Chip Malafronte of the New Haven Register, Neill Ostrout of the Connecticut Post, Desmond Conner of the Hartford Courant, Joe Silver of the Norwich Bulletin and John Silver of the Journal Inquirer all have note and thoughts from Randy Edsall’s teleconference yesterday.

Zach Frazer didn’t practice on Sunday and his status for the game this week is unknown.

Chip Malafronte of the New Haven Register takes a look at the UConn QB situation. He also said UConn won’t have a decision on Frazer until Thursday at the earliest.

Rob Lunn shares his thoughts about the loss at Thoughts From a Fat White Guy.

The UConn men’s soccer team beat Marquette 1-0 on Saturday night.

Tony Cascio was named the Big East Men’s Soccer Rookie of the Week for the week ending 10/19.

The UConn women’s soccer team fell 2-0 to #1 Notre Dame on Sunday afternoon.

Once again, I’d like to offer up my congratulations to the Tampa Bay Rays for making it to their first World Series.

So does this loss sting for the Boston Red Sox. Of course it does. They set a goal of getting back to the World Series and didn’t quite get there. Over time, the Red Sox had their chances to get there but they fell behind 3-1 in the ALCS to the better team in the Rays. As we all should know, the Red Sox never give up and didn’t as they got themselves back to having a chance of competing for a second straight World Series title.

Does this loss hurt? Of course it does. But I for one am proud of this team. We saw a new crop of youngsters step it up when it mattered most in Justin Masterson and Jed Lowrie. We saw the Red Sox battle through adversity all season with the various injuries to Josh Beckett, David Ortiz, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Mike Lowell, Julio “E-6” Lugo and some members of the bullpen. Even with those key losses, we saw others step up their games.

Will it take a while to get over this loss. Of course it will. But when you take a look at things, the future is bright. We have some key good youngsters ready to step up and we should have everyone healthy to start the season. So once you’re done grieving for 2008, let’s look forward to 2009 and seeing the Red Sox get back to the ultimate stage in baseball, the World Series.

Jon Lester would love to take the pitch to Willy Aybar back if he could.

If the Rays thought Boston fans were bad, wait til they get to Philadelphia.

It was a rare taste of failure in the postseason for David Ortiz.

Matt Garza demonstrated some grit as he kept the Red Sox hitters at bay last night.

Was last night the final time we’ll see Jason Varitek in a Red Sox uniform?

You can’t say the Red Sox didn’t go down fighting.

Sadly enough, only televisions crews met the Red Sox at Fenway when they returned home.

Jacoby Ellsbury said the Red Sox played with heart last night.

Dan Roche of WBZ-TV said it was a tough ending to the season.

The Boston Globe scribes have their video roundups of the game.

Here are the postgame transcripts from Terry Francona, Joe Maddon and Matt Garza.

As for us, we’ll still be here in the offseason bringing you the news and other thoughts as the Red Sox now have to prepare for 2009 instead of defending their title on Wednesday night.

For more playoff slices of Boston Red Sox goodness, head over to the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Hartford Courant and Providence Journal websites.

And if you must see what the enemy papers are saying you can check out the Tampa Tribune and St. Petersburg Times websites.