Last year around this time, I took a trip to Albany to see the America East men’s basketball tournament. The weekend turned into one of my finest memories of college, and it wasn’t just because Binghamton won both of its games. Every single matchup was intriguing and entertaining; the atmosphere of the fans, the intensity of the players and the glorious prospect of an NCAA tournament berth made the weekend truly memorable.

I got to witness Binghamton make its way toward history, and I was among the Bearcats fans that stormed the court. With all the players that were released from the team last September, a repeat title seemed impossible. However, this year’s team showed hard work, dedication and solid talent and made their presence in the conference picture felt. Pipe Dream’s staff was planning to make the trip to Hartford to properly cover the America East basketball championship and to enjoy two days of great basketball. Our dreams of a relaxing weekend away from Binghamton were shattered when we received the news that the administration removed our team from the tournament.

My anger and disdain for the administration’s decision to remove our men’s basketball team from the tournament is due to a couple of different reasons. First, all my fun that weekend was ruined. With the high-profile team not making the trip, a majority of our motivation to go was eliminated. Simply put, Lois DeFleur ruined my weekend. I am a huge fan of all Bearcats sports. I am not sure where the school spirit came from, but it surfaced my freshman year and really took hold the following year. My Bearcats pride is most evident at basketball games because it is one of my favorite sports. So the fact that I was not able to see them to defend their only title made me furious.

Second, the administration punished a team that was innocent from the past mistakes. All the players remaining were free of public wrongdoing, all coaches in the wrong were off the team and the remaining pieces had shown extreme dedication to bring a program from the ashes and translate it to a very good basketball team. I understand the decision was an attempt to reduce potential NCAA and America East sanctions, but those who were hurt by this decision were not at fault. The athletic department and the administration were the ones bending the rules and acting questionably, and so their attempts to save their collective asses directly punished innocent kids. The administrators should have resigned and admitted their mistakes. The SUNY audit clearly indicated who was at fault. The fact that this fallout hurt a bunch of kids, who only worked as hard as they could, makes me disgusted by our school.

All in all, this is mostly me complaining on how my life was affected by the decision. But the reality is that it is every Bearcats fan has suffered from it. Every current and future basketball player has to deal with the fallout of mistakes that our administrators made. All the admissions failures and all the academic shortcomings are indicative of the underlying problem that our president and her cronies sacrificed other people’s futures and other people’s lives just so they could say that they won an AE basketball title. Don’t worry, I will be a Bearcat till I die, but that statement doesn’t mean what it once did.