Years from now, the story of the Binghamton Bearcats will be told as a cautionary campfire tale to scare overly ambitious athletic directors at low-mid-majors and coaches looking to take shortcuts of the potential dangers.

From their first NCAA appearance ever and widely expected to win the America East in 2010 to a mess.

Six months after losing to Duke in the first round of the 2009 NCAA Tournament, Binghamton (1-0) was in the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

In a five-week span beginning in late September, six players were kicked off the team, including star guard Emanuel “Tiki” Mayben, arrested for distribution of cocaine; athletic director Joel Thirer resigned; coach Kevin Broadus was placed on an indefinite paid leave of absence; the athletic department underwent an independent review by the State University of New York; and the school self-reported to the NCAA for secondary violations under Broadus.

Then, after all that, the Bearcats — the conference’s defending champion — blew off the American East preseason Media Day in Hartford last month.

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Mayben was joined by five other players kicked off the team two days later (reasons were not given by their dismissals). Among them were the team’s top scorer, guard D.J. Rivera; guard Malik Alvin, the team’s third-leading scorer; and former Rutgers transfer Corey Chandler.

Three weeks before the start of practice, Binghamton didn’t have enough players to hold a live scrimmage. Former Temple great Mark Macon, an assistant under Broadus, was promoted to interim coach Oct. 14, three days before the start of practice.

That is a heavily abbreviated and fairly sanitized version of how bad things are.

As it stands, the Beacats of SUNY-Binghamton have only 7 players on scholarships. Days before the season started they had tryouts to have more walk-ons if only to get bodies to practice against.

It showed as the Bearcats managed to win their season opener 54-49 over D-2 Bloomsburg. A team that won 4 games last season and well here’s some of their competition: IUP, Slippery Rock, Kutztown, Clarion and other forces in the PSAC.

It’s a situation that has the 40-year old, never been a head coach before Macon spouting cliches at every turn trying to be positive.

“We play to win,” Macon said. “I guess they put their pants or shorts on like we do. We’re men, we’re trying to win. We respect our opponents, we also want to win.”

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“It takes time, we’re only two games in (including the exhibition game against Holy Family), with a month or so of practice,” Macon said. “We have a whole new team. Now we have to build these things on a daily basis.”I wish it could happen in one day, but it doesn’t happen like that. I do have confidence in all my guys.”

Enough. Enough with the cliches.

“There is always opportunity in adversity,” Macon said. “There are always good things that come from facing adversity. If you press coal long enough you get a diamond. We’ll go through our ups and downs. We’ll try to get better. But we’re always going to play hard and play to win.”

Something  in the notes that Pitt turned down the ESPN Hoops Marathon last year because of a less than friendly time slot. Good for Pitt. This is a great little gimmick, but Pitt and the Big East already bend over too much with their football deal with ESPN. 5:30 is going to be tricky enough.

It should be interesting to see what kind of crowd comes out for the game tomorrow evening. A 5:30 p.m. weekday start is unprecedented at Pitt. Not only are most people working until 5 o5 6, but the traffic getting to Oakland will be interesting to say the least at that time of the day. Jamie Dixon said today he has no idea what to expect.

Lots of aggravation I’m guessing from those trying to get to the Pete.