Over the weekend, a story written by Pete Thamel came out in The New York Times concerning Binghamton University’s men’s basketball program, its head coach Kevin Broadus and other members of the school’s administration, including school President Lois DeFleur. The main focus was to drag the program’s name through the mud, and to be perfectly frank, I was offended by the entire piece.

Like any student on this campus, I have heard all the rumblings about the “criminal element” of the team, the recruiting practices of the coaching staff and other gripes. Many of them have come from people who attend other institutions, but very few from people here in Binghamton.

The University released a response to the article on Sunday through Director of Media Relations Gail Glover. In it, she writes:

“From our perspective, the New York Times article did not accurately reflect some of the basic facts. Our primary goal at Binghamton has been and will continue to be the growth and development of all dimensions of the University. Our participation in Division I is a small, but strategic part of these goals. As a fledgling program, no different from others, we face similar challenges and successes. Any suggestion that we have compromised our high standards and excellent reputation to achieve this goal is misleading.”

And I tend to agree with that. And besides, even if these rumors do prove to be true, are we all so naive to think that the exact same thing isn’t going on at countless other institutions in this country? I sincerely hope that we’re not.

So I was surprised to see names from the faculty, and even formers players going on record to sully the good name of the basketball program in this article. After reading through the article three or four times, it became apparent to me that the people quoted in the article, with the exception of most of the administration, were either disgruntled former faculty members, or former players who couldn’t hack it under Broadus’ tutelage.

The article also states that Broadus is known for “recruiting good players with questionable backgrounds.” This might be the case; I won’t disagree with that. Current stars D.J. Rivera, Malik Alvin and Emanuel Mayben have all had academic issues elsewhere. However, until it comes to light that they’re having the same troubles here at Binghamton, I don’t think there’s any reason to lose sleep over it. And yes, players have also been in trouble with the law this season. Alvin was charged with assault, but the charges were later dropped. The way the article portrays the incident, it seems as if he maliciously attacked an elderly women. In reality, he knocked her over while running — albeit in the midst of an accused theft. Still, this is a case where the casual reader will misinterpret the facts because of Thamel’s wording.

As with any negative article concerning the program, the piece brings up Miladin “Minja” Kovacevic. I don’t need to go into what he did; we all know. However, it is important to note that he is no longer a part of the program, and therefore Broadus isn’t responsible for his conduct. Kovacevic was at fault, and no one else involved with the program.

Thamel also spoke to former University of Vermont head basketball coach Tom Brennan, who asked the question: “Even if they [Binghamton] win an America East championship, what is it worth?” The answer is simple, a championship is a championship. And until there’s real, hard evidence that anything is occurring here, not just comments from angry faculty members and former players, there should be no scar on the face of Binghamton University basketball.