The luster had worn off for Binghamton University men’s tennis.

The team that won the America East, and reached the NCAA Championships, every season from 2003-05, was forgotten. Swept under the rug of Binghamton visibility behind a new coach and a young lineup.

The team had been dominant for too long. Failure became relative — that’s what happens. A runner-up finish in 2006, followed by a sub .500 season in 2007, can make people think a team is done.

But this team wasn’t done; there was just no real way to gauge it.

When Binghamton took home the title in 2005, it rolled into the AE Tournament with a 19-5 record overall, and a perfect 4-0 AE season.

This year the Bearcats hadn’t played an AE game since they bageled conference bottom-feeders Boston University and winless Hartford back in February. So what did the 11-10 record heading into this past weekend’s America East Tournament mean?

A lot more than anyone thought.

The signs were there. Wins over George Washington, Georgetown, Cornell, Temple and Army should have opened some eyes. A narrow 4-3 loss to No. 12 Concordia in the season finale should have opened the rest of them.

But for whatever reason it didn’t, and the Bearcats flew into this weekend undetected, even as the top seed.

But now the luster is back, and so is that of BU athletics. This could have been a season to forget for Bearcat sports. There was legitimate danger that for the first time since 2002, there would be no Bearcat team advancing to the NCAA’s.

Yeah, Rory Quiller, Josh Patterson and Kyle Fried went as individuals, but until this weekend, where six Bearcat tennis players and their second-year coach made a stand, there was no team champion.

This men’s tennis team did what the soccer team couldn’t do this fall, and the baseball team couldn’t do last spring. Win when they were supposed to, and get to that next level.

And so we admit faults; Pipe Dream is just as guilty as anyone for letting that luster wear off of the men’s tennis team. It’s what happens when a team plays only three home games, mostly on cold Sunday afternoons in the Southern Tier spring.

But Faisal Mohamed making one more quest for an NCAA berth should have been a story people were talking about. Arnav Jain and Sven Vloedgraven should have been Rookie of the Year finalists, not the final guys removed from our lists. Adam Cohen should have had Coach of the Year consideration for bringing those guys in.

But we didn’t know.

The only guys who knew kept quiet and did it on the court. And now they’re champions. And now we know.

Congratulations.