The College Basketball Post

Corey Fisher
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...finally...been playin some good ball.
 
Fish is shaping up to be really good. At this point Flynn is still better but not by much. Fisher doesn't try to compensate for a poor game by making baddecisions. Jay Wright is doing a great job with him.
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He is not 6'1". I worked with him a few summers ago and I have at least two inches on him.

Dante Cunningham is playing himself into the draft with this year he is having. He definitely worked on his game during the summer.
 
I never have seen a team shoot so many contested 3's. We don't work at all on offense. We come off one screen and pop it.

If it isn't a bad three. It is a bad drive by Devo or Flynn. They just try to do everything. What's is wrong with trying to dump it inside.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/sports/ncaabasketball/22binghamton.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1http://www.nytimes.com/20...tml?pagewanted=1&_r=1
[h1]At Binghamton, Division I Move Brings Recognition and Regret[/h1]
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C J Gunther for The New York Times

. J. Rivera, left, could be player of the year in the America East. Malik Alvin went to Binghamton from a junior college


By PETE THAMEL

Published: February 21, 2009

VESTAL, N.Y. - Sitting 10 rows up at midcourt, Binghamton University's president, Lois B. DeFleur, and athletic director, Joel Thirer, can look around the $33 million campus events center and see their dream of Division I men's basketball unfold.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/s...hamton.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1#secondParagraph
[h4]Related[/h4]


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C J Gunther for The New York Times

. J. Rivera transferred after sitting out at St. Joseph's because of academic problems.
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The Bearcats finally have what DeFleur and Thirer have yearned for since ignoring a faculty senate vote and pushing the athletic program to Division I in 2001: a team talented enough to possibly reach the N.C.A.A. tournament.

But how they got here, and whether it is all worth seeing Binghamton's name pop up on CBS on Selection Sunday, has led many on campus to wonder at what cost the university has pursued big-time men's basketball.

The Bearcats have endured several arrests and suspensions since the 2007 hiring of Coach Kevin Broadus. A former Georgetown assistant, he is known for recruiting good players with questionable backgrounds.

At least one teacher has said she received so much pressure to change her grading policy for basketball players that it bordered on harassment.

"They're on a very slippery slope," said Tim Schum, a former Binghamton physical education professor, soccer coach and associate athletic director who retired in 2002. "There is a double standard for what basketball will put up with compared to the standards for other sports. I don't know if it's written, but it's certainly understood."

The administration sees basketball as a way to burnish the university's reputation as the academic jewel of the State University of New York. The Bearcats are thriving on the court, posting an 18-8 overall record and holding second place in the America East Conference at 11-3.

DeFleur, once a basketball player at Blackburn College in Illinois, said that Binghamton had followed the lead of SUNY campuses at Buffalo, Albany and Stony Brook in moving to Division I. But there is concern that DeFleur and Thirer have allowed their men's basketball program too much leeway.

Patrick Nero, the commissioner of the America East, said he had spoken with them about Binghamton's off-court issues. He also said that Binghamton's Academic Progress Rates and graduation rates were among the top 20 percent in college basketball.

"We're trying to be fair and not prejudge," Nero said.

"I don't know how I'll feel a year from now or six months from now. Certainly there have been signs there that made me concerned."

Dennis Lasser, who was removed as a faculty athletic representative after Broadus arrived, said that Binghamton had lowered its standards. For about 10 years, Lasser was the liaison between the athletic department and the admissions office for athletes' applications.

"It appears to me that minimum qualifications as specified by the N.C.A.A. are the only academic criteria currently needed for the men's basketball team to be admitted to Binghamton University," said Lasser, a tenured associate professor in the school of management. "I am disappointed by this turn of events."

DeFleur said: "I would say that we have a range of students who are admitted to the basketball program over the whole history.

"There may be some who have the minimum, but we have to make the judgment if they can be successful here."

Thirer was surprised to learn soon after hiring Broadus that he had recruited players from a notorious Philadelphia diploma mill, Lutheran Christian Academy, while he was an assistant at Georgetown and at George Washington University.

"If there's a history of that, it certainly won't be the case here," Thirer said. "I can guarantee that. We just don't want to win that badly."

Questionable Recruiting

Since then, Binghamton accepted two players - center Theo Davis and guard Devon McBride - who spent time at Lutheran Christian, now closed. And Broadus's recruiting strategy has focused on well-traveled players.

Davis transferred to Binghamton from Gonzaga University, where he was charged with misdemeanor marijuana possession.

When asked in January about Davis's time at Lutheran Christian, Broadus said: "You're searching, man. The kid is here, and he's got a 2.7 G.P.A."

Broadus suggested that the real story was his team's winning record; Binghamton was 14-16 last season. Not long after Broadus said he kept Davis home from a trip to focus on his studies, Davis quit the team over playing time.

The junior guard D. J. Rivera, a contender for America East player of the year, came to Binghamton after sitting out a semester at St. Joseph's because of academic problems.
The junior guard Malik Alvin, who left Texas-El Paso in part because of academic problems, university officials there confirmed, came to Binghamton after attending junior college.


Another junior guard, Tiki Mayben, had signed with Syracuse but did not meet the eligibility standards out of high school. He sat out a year and played one season at Massachusetts before transferring to community college and then to Binghamton.

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C J Gunther for The New York Times

Binghamton Athletic Director Joel Thirer, left, and the men's basketball coach, Kevin Broadus.

[h4]Related[/h4]The Quad: Changes at Binghamton Are Noticed

[h5] [/h5]
The Quad returns to a new season of college basketball coverage.
Go to The Quad Blog »

[h4]Men[/h4]
[h4]Women[/h4]
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C. J. Gunther for The New York Times

Coach Kevin Broadus is a former assistant at Georgetown.
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"It certainly appears to me that Binghamton has decided they're going to take a lot of risks, and it also appears that it hasn't worked out," said Tom Brennan, the former coach at Vermont who led the Catamounts to three N.C.A.A. tournament berths from 2003 to 2005. "Even if they win an America East championship, what is it worth?"

Disruptive in Class

Sally Dear, an adjunct lecturer at Binghamton, said that her experience last semester with three men's basketball players in her Human Development 304 class had frustrated her to tears. They were a continual nuisance, she said, missing classes and appointments, or arriving late and leaving early. Dear, who has a strict attendance policy, also said Broadus once showed up to check that the players were in class, something that had never happened in her 10 years of teaching.

Dear said she stopped teaching numerous times because of their disruptive behavior. When she caught one player text-messaging during class, she recalled, he said he was receiving a message from his coach.

"All I know is the aptitude and the attitude that are displayed in the classroom," Dear said. "I would have preferred to see a more academically prepared and serious student."

Dear would not reveal the players' names or grades, citing privacy rules. Under Dear's policy, students are dropped a full grade after three absences. After the players missed three of her classes, Ed Scott, the associate athletic director for student services, questioned her right to drop their grades.

Dear was unhappy that their playing schedule had not been made available to her at the start of the semester so they could plan for the absences.

"I felt pressure to cut them breaks that weren't available to other students," she said, adding that Scott sent e-mail messages and called relentlessly to question her grading policy.

"That was uncomfortable and inappropriate," she said. "My expectations were called into question, and I was being essentially asked to bend the rules or overlook them or not apply things equally."

Thirer, the athletic director, said, "It's not true."

Scott declined to address Dear's specific criticisms other than to say that her near-harassment contention was "not accurate" and that their face-to-face meeting regarded the treatment of athletes as detailed in the faculty-staff handbook.

Dear, who said she was terrified of losing her job for speaking out against the basketball program, was concerned about what would happen to the players who might be injured and had to rely on their education. Binghamton's best players would not even be marginal N.B.A. prospects.

"All of our basketball players are eligible and are making progress toward graduation," DeFleur, the university president, said.

"Since we've been Division I, all of the players that have stayed in the program have graduated."

Broadus, 45, said that his players had been "exceptional in the classroom" and that giving young men a second chance was part of his job. He referred to Georgetown's acceptance of Allen Iverson despite an arrest in high school for his part in a bowling alley brawl.

"Who knows how any of these kids are going to turn out?" Broadus said.

"Look back at Georgetown. Allen Iverson has been a model citizen in America. He's taken care of his family and is playing well in the N.B.A. We're in the business of giving kids opportunities to better themselves in life. That's my job."

The changes at Binghamton have been noticed by the America East, whose teams rarely make money or appear on national television. When the league's faculty athletic representatives meet, they talk about modeling themselves after the Ivy and Patriot Leagues, not the Big East or the Southeastern Conferences.

Jim Fiore, the athletic director at Stony Brook, said, "It certainly causes you to pause when you think that on a different level in the league, someone has a different philosophy than we do."

Broadus, however, does not answer to the conference.

"I'm running my program, and my administration is happy the way I'm running it," Broadus said.

"I tolerate no nonsense with any of these kids and I'm doing it the right way."

Problems Off the Court

The worst moments for Bearcats basketball have not occurred in the classroom.
In May, the sophomore center Miladin Kovacevic beat a fellow student, Bryan Steinhauer, into a coma at a bar. After posting bail, Kovacevic fled to his native Serbia.


Broadus declined comment on Kovacevic, who sat out last season with an injury but worked out with the team. Thirer said that Broadus had not recruited Kovacevic and had revoked his scholarship before the beating.

Skip to next paragraph
[h4]Related[/h4]The Quad: Changes at Binghamton Are Noticed

[h5] [/h5]
The Quad returns to a new season of college basketball coverage.
Go to The Quad Blog »

[h4]Men[/h4]
[h4]Women[/h4] http://
In November, the transfer Malik Alvin was charged with stealing condoms from a Wal-Mart and assaulting a 66-year-old woman while leaving the store. Alvin's story spread rapidly because condoms are available free on campus. He was suspended for three games and reinstated after the assault charges were dropped.

"I've been doing this for a long time," said Thirer, Binghamton's athletic director since 1989. "Stuff happens with all of our teams and all of our student body."

In mid-January, Broadus suspended the senior guard Dwayne Jackson indefinitely but would not reveal the violation. "I didn't bring that kid in," Broadus said.

Jackson did not respond to an e-mail message seeking comment, and his mother, Althea, said only that he was concentrating on earning his degree.

McBride, another player recruited by Broadus's predecessor, Al Walker, had a spat with Broadus during a game at Vermont last season, left the bench and soon after left the team.

McBride said the off-court problems were not a surprise. He said Binghamton players last season often drank alcohol and smoked marijuana.

"I don't recall there being any control off the court," said McBride, who said he left because he was unhappy about his playing time and Broadus's coaching style. "I just think that wasn't one of their concerns. I just think he trusted the players to uphold their own integrity. Obviously, that didn't really work."

Last season, the university even suspended Broadus for a game after he shoved the Albany assistant Chad O'Donnell during the postgame handshake. (O'Donnell was also suspended for a game.)

Lasser, the former faculty athletic representative, said he had been the "point person from the faculty to get this thing passed to go Division I."

But these days, Lasser does not step foot in the five-year-old Binghamton University Events Center for basketball games and is indifferent to the Bearcats. He said he saw a culture change in the athletic department that he did not feel comfortable supporting.
"There's nothing illegal with what they're doing," Lasser said. "I just thought that there was a better way for us to be successful."

the author, Pete Thamel...also wrote this article Final Four weekend of 2007...
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/30/s...30georgetown.html?_r=1&ref=sports&oref=sloginhttp://www.nytimes.com/20...ef=sports&oref=slogin


Author's bio:

"Pete Thamel covers college sports for The New York Times... Before joining The Times, Thamel covered college sports for ESPN.com, ESPN Magazine, the Syracuse Post-Standard and The Daily Orange. A native of Ware, Mass., Thamel graduated from Syracuse University in 1999."

lol.

can't believe the times would print this crap.


Whoever gets Broadus is gettin a good one.
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Originally Posted by allen3xis


Author's bio:

"Pete Thamel covers college sports for The New York Times... Before joining The Times, Thamel covered college sports for ESPN.com, ESPN Magazine, the Syracuse Post-Standard and The Daily Orange. A native of Ware, Mass., Thamel graduated from Syracuse University in 1999."
lol.

can't believe the times would print this crap.


Whoever gets Broadus is gettin a good one.
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Well, he did write for the Post-Standard and the DO, some of the worst papers I've ever read. The NYT isn't known for sports so I see whythat was able to slip in there.

(whoa, deja vu)
 
just saw the calhoun vid
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better question woulda been about how he gives season tickets to local car dealerships for a free car every year.
 
Horrible loss for Cuse.

Needed this win to sort of pad our record a bit. Especially since it was a ranked opponent and a home game.
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Last 4 games: @ St John's, Cincy & Rutgers at home, and end the season @ Quette.

Personally, I think Cuse can win them all.

Won't be happy with anything less than 3 out of 4.
 
Originally Posted by AirAnt23

YO! Mike...

MEMPHIS AIN'T GOOD.

Damn.



Dudes play scrubs for 7 consecutive weeks. DF!!!


Agreed, not buying this team at all. They just get to turn on cruise control being in CUSA every year.
 
Originally Posted by allen3xis

MSU needs someone to take over on this team.


They lack that game-changing player who can insert his will over a game. Maybe with more time Roe could do that but I haven't seen it yet though. With Izzothogh you never know.
 
Originally Posted by allen3xis

Is SNY gona give us a score box or announcers for this game?
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I was thinking the same thing. All we were getting was crowd noise and PA guy.
 
Originally Posted by JamesOnNT

waiting for this duke vs wake game ..

should be good... more interesting might be the zona/asu game later tonight though. sunday night hoops are alright with me. though i think i'm going outand will have to catch the highlights/replays on both these.
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