Leading off today: It's not often that I mention college sports in this blog, but it's also fairly rare for a New York institution of higher learning to kick five men's basketball players off the team in the same week that another player gets arrested on felony drug charges.
Let's just say you can ignore the five years remaining on his contract and start the countdown now on the end of Kevin Broadus' tenure at Binghamton University, which was already getting horrible reviews of its athletic program before this week's meltdown.
A day after the team dismissed starting point guard Emanuel "Tiki" Mayben, the former Troy star, after police charged him with selling cocaine, AD Joel Thirer said seniors D.J. Rivera, Malik Alvin and David Fine, junior Paul Crosby and incoming transfer Corey Chandler were being dropped from the team, The Press & Sun-Bulletin reported.
The five are being allowed to stay in school on scholarship (Fine, the son of Syracuse University assistant Bernie Fine, is the only non-scholarship player) but school President Lois DeFleur made it clear that she did not want them representing BU following their various transgressions.
"She is really, really upset," Thirer told the paper. "She's fed up and she's had it with being embarrassed. She said (to) make it real clear, every coach, and all of your coaching staff, it's not just basketball, you better give a heads-up to your people that this won't be tolerated.
"And if anybody's not in line with the way your coaches are thinking, your coaches need to make changes and adjust their lineups and adjust their rosters."
School officials said Broadus made the choice to dismiss the players yesterday, but it's almost certain the decision was made for him, perhaps with at least some encouragement from the highest level. SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher is widely credited with cleaning up the cesspool that the University of Cincinnati had become under Bob Huggins.
"President DeFleur has issued a statement that I take to be definitive and entirely appropriate to the circumstances," said Carl Hayden, chairman of the SUNY Board of Trustees. "I view the situation seriously. Binghamton is one of the crown jewels of the SUNY system, and I don't want to see its standards in any way compromised."
Alvin was arrested in November 2008 on misdemeanor assault and petit larceny charges, the newspaper reported. Rivera showed up his coach by pulling off his jersey and walking off the court during a game last season.
