Duke has drawn Binghamton for their first-round game in the NCAAs, and many of you might not realize that Binghamton has generated some controversy.
A D-1 team for only eight years, the rest of the America East Conference is not at all happy with Kevin Broadus' program and snubbed it by refusing to vote any of his players on the All-Conference team, despite their considerable success.
Broadus, you may remember, was the Georgetown assistant who had a pipeline to Lutheran Christian Academy, a school that basically pushed kids through to get scholarships (the NCAA recently cracked down on such schools).
There's the standard amount of questionable academics, but we had forgotten about Miladin Kovacevic, a center who beat another student into a coma and then left the country for Serbia. Another kid was arrested for stealing condoms, which are free on campus, and charged with assaulting a 66-year old woman.
And Broadus himself was suspended for getting into a shoving match.
Pretty clearly it's not an ideal situation, as a number of faculty members argue. Here are a pair of links from the Times about the situation.
- America East Coaches Refuse to Honor Binghamtonâs Rivera
- At Binghamton, Division I Move Brings Recognition and Regret
Binghamton is a small team, with starters G Emanuel Mayben, 6-3, Jr. (11.7 ppg); G Malik Alvin, 6-0, Jr. (11.6 ppg 82% FT); G Chretien Lukusa, 6-2, So. (4.4 ppg); F D.J. Rivera, 6-4, Jr. (20.1 ppg, 6.6 rpg); F Reggie Fuller, 6-6, Sr. (9.9 ppg, 7.0 rpg) (roster & stats from USAToday).