Vermont wasn’t built in a day.

Before the 2001-02 season, when the Catamounts won the America East regular season men’s basketball title, the team had never finished higher than third.

This from a school that was a founding member of the conference in 1979.

And while Vermont just had an impressive streak of five-straight conference championship games snapped — Gonzaga is the only school in the country that had a longer streak going — that didn’t always happen either. Before the recent run, the Catamounts had been to just one AE Championship ever.

So don’t get down when Vermont keeps barely beating Binghamton. Take it with some perspective — the Catamounts have had a lot more practice.

Binghamton University didn’t even play in its first America East Tournament until 2004, the season before the majority of current BU seniors arrived on campus.

Since then, the team has grown by leaps and bounds. There has been a second-place finish. Record-setting attendances. Defensive Player of the Years. All-Conference players. And a new coach with a Big East pedigree.

But, just like teams don’t win in a day, coaches don’t turn programs around in one season.

It’s no coincidence that Kyle Cieplicki, Mike Trimboli and now Marqus Blakely got the best of Binghamton again. And it’s not a surprise that Binghamton fans hate those guys.

Those are Vermont guys. And Vermont guys are the guys that beat Binghamton. Because they never quit and because they work within the system they’re a part of. And while Cieplicki and Trimboli struggled early and Blakely was contained, Vermont’s role players, the Evan Fjeld’s, the Nick Vier’s and the Joey Accaoui’s — guys who didn’t earn the BU Zoo’s wrath — kept Vermont going.

There was never any panic from the Catamounts, because at halftime they trailed by seven when their two best shooters, Trimboli and Cieplicki, were a combined 1-for-10 from the floor.

“We were thankful to only be down seven at that point,” Cieplicki said. “When we can be 1-for-10 and still only be down seven, we knew we could get back in the game. We’ve been here before so I think having that confidence helped us.”

Cieplicki and Trimboli never worried; they knew their shots would fall, they knew to keep pressuring Binghamton, to keep playing Vermont basketball and that if they did, the game was never over. The Catamounts kept playing their game because they’ve been there. They knew that Vermont basketball could win this game.

Binghamton, on the other hand, is still learning a new system. No coach can be expected to dance in his first year, Final Four experience or not.

Even Vermont plummeted to sixth place two years ago in Lonergan’s first season, and the next season they were in first.

Kevin Broadus wants everyone to buy into his system, the way Vermont players do.

“I told [Binghamton] before the game, ‘I want to build a program like that,’” Broadus said.

And this team will get there, but it takes time. Broadus’ recognition of Vermont as a model to build from is a start, but don’t look at Saturday’s collapse as a bad thing. It was a more disciplined, more experienced team, a team that already knows its system, rallying against a team that, like it or not, was still finding its way.

But that won’t always be the case. Next year, guys like Chretien Lukusa and Brandon Herbert, freshmen who played big roles this season and know no other way than Broadus’, will have a year of experience and a whole new crop of young players to pass on their wisdom.

Next year, Lazar Trifunovic won’t be banged up the way he was in the second half of this season. Laz had never played as long of a season as he did this year, and next year, in addition to being more prepared, he’ll have a hopefully recovered Minja Kovacevic, the new and improved Jaan Montgomery and Gonzaga transfer Theo Davis, to give him and Reggie Fuller some relief down low.

And most important, next season Kevin Broadus and his staff won’t have to work on instilling a new system. It will be about building and making sure last year wasn’t a waste.

And they’ll get better. Want proof?

Look at next Saturday’s America East Championship. No. 2 Hartford will look to knock off top-seeded UMBC and make its first ever NCAA Tournament.

It is Dan Leibovitz’s second year at the helm. Last year the Hawks were in the play-in game.

Especially in the America East, a year can be a very long time.