Jim Baron: not exactly a popular guy in Kingston right now.

It’s been another year filled with expectations and a void of an NCAA Tournament appearance (most likely) for Rhody fans. After getting to 19-3 overall and holding a 7-2 record in the Atlantic 10, the Rams fell apart. They now stand at 21-8, haven’t won a “must-win” game in weeks and are on the verge of another quasi-collapse.

And the fans have had enough.

Or so they say.

The Rams fans took to, where else, the message boards to state their anger and try and rally against showing up at the Ryan Center for tomorrow night’s opening-round game of the Atlantic 10 tournament against St. Joseph’s.

A sample post: “BTW, I’ve been to my last game at the Ryan, until Baron is gone. Imagine what the loyal fans of this team go thru, that go on the road with this team. URI has seen my last dollar until they wake up.”

Some will go through with it, most will probably not. You know how these Internet-created boycotts tend to go. They pick up steam, then peter out and hardly anyone follows through with it.

I will be interested to see if the place is packed to capacity for a game against a terrible team, though. The winner will join seven other teams in Atlantic City later in the week to play out the rest of the conference tournament.

Head coach Jim Baron is 151-127 since he took over in 2001. But he hasn’t gotten the program to the NCAAs since he started, and URI last reached The Tournament in 1999. Rhode Island hasn’t had a Tournament drought last this long since 1966-1978.