You can take the player out of the Binghamton University basketball mess, but apparently, you can’t take the Binghamton University basketball mess out of the player.
Last week, Kyrie Sutton — the men’s basketball team’s only senior and last remaining member from the 2009 America East championship squad — was dismissed. His dismissal, which severed the basketball team’s last ties to its scandal-ridden Broadus Era, was labeled by head coach Mark Macon as a “coach’s decision,” though it seems implausible that Sutton’s slew of arrests in the last two years, the most recent on the day Macon cut him from the team, did not impact this decision.
The end of Sutton’s career with the Bearcats smacks of irony. The 6-foot-9-inch center was the last man standing from the dark ages of Binghamton men’s basketball. It would have been nice to see him make it to the end of his senior season, something the Riveras, Maybens and Alvins did not, but doesn’t this ending just seem too appropriate?
Broadus’ tenure at the helm brought prosperity on the court, but he and his recruits wreaked havoc off it. Player arrests, coaching violations and a lack of academic integrity marred athletic success and, hopefully temporarily, the reputation of our University. Sutton outlasted all of it and came out on the other side, seemingly unscathed.
It’s upsetting, but Sutton’s departure from the team fits. It aligns with the culture of the team in which his career was rooted, a team riddled with players and staff who often neglected to follow the rules.
As we see it, Sutton’s removal from the team was a tactful move on Macon’s part. Granted, the coach’s coyness regarding the legal implications of the matter is not inspiring — he is still reluctant to cite Sutton’s legal troubles as even partial cause for his dismissal.
But it was the right move nonetheless.
And even though it came after Sutton’s fourth run-in with the law, tough discipline such as this would have been extremely unlikely during the tenures of Broadus or former athletic director Joel Thirer, who did not take action when a multitude of such incidents happened under their watch.
Macon was proactive. It didn’t take a horribly illuminating NCAA audit or a scathing story in The New York Times to get officials to make moves. They held out on Sutton as long as they could, but ultimately, his most recent arrest — possession of stolen property — was very likely the straw that broke the camel’s back.
And if the ironic nature of Sutton’s dismissal isn’t enough, maybe the timing is. As Sutton packs up his locker and takes Binghamton basketball’s dark ages with him, Patrick Elliott is taking over the reins as athletic director. Hopefully, he will ensure that the demons of the Broadus Era leave the Events Center permanently.