The once mighty Binghamton University men’s basketball team must have trouble defining its own version of term “rock bottom.”
Because even when it seems that it can’t get any worse for these Bearcats, it does — and farther and farther they fall.
Binghamton came out of winter break the same way it came in: winless. The Bearcats’ season record is now a mind-boggling 0-21, and — with Towson University’s win on Saturday — Binghamton is now the only winless team out of the 342 Division I men’s basketball programs in the country. 15 of those losses have been by a double-digit margin.
Even more shocking than that, in the Bearcats’ past 34 regular season games, dating back to Jan. 15, 2011, the team has sunk to a dismal 1-33 record. Attendance and interest have declined – so much so that students, merely by showing up to games, can qualify to win free tuition for a semester.
Most recently, the Bearcats fought hard but fell to University of Maine (9-10, 3-5 America East) by a 67-59 score on Saturday. The team cut a 19-point second-half deficit down to seven but could not bring it back. Junior guard Jimmy Gray led the Bearcats with 24 points on sharp 10-of-16 shooting. Freshman forward Ben Dickinson, who has been strong for Binghamton of late, sat the game out with a shoulder injury. BU head coach Mark Macon considers him day-to-day and noted, “He’ll be fine.”
If there is a bright spot for the Bearcats, it’s the fact that three of the past four losses have been by single digits. Before the Maine loss, Binghamton fell to University at Albany (13-9, 5-3 AE) by a final score of 74-68. Sophomore guard Rob Mansell netted 22 points while Dickinson filled up the stat sheet with 21 points, eight boards and five assists. BU led for a majority of the game.
“There are not a lot of problems; we’re just not winning games,” Macon said. “We’ve been getting a whole lot better. We’ve been playing well in every game. We have to play better, and we’re getting better game by game.”
It just never seems to be enough to put the Bearcats over the top.
Although the players haven’t won yet, Macon feels positive about the team atmosphere in the locker room.
“The pulse of the locker room is great,” he said. “On the court, they’re upbeat. I know now they’re getting better.”
But the statistics tell a different story. The Bearcats’ field goal percentage is a meager 38.4 percent on the year, while their opponents are shooting 49 percent. The team hits just 27.6 percent of their 3-point attempts, is consistently outrebounded, attempts far fewer overall shots and is bested in almost every overall statistical category by opponents.
Regardless of the numbers, Macon is not about to tell his squad to stop shooting the basketball.
“I have confidence in my guys,” Macon said. “Jimmy has been shooting well, Ben is shooting better, everybody’s getting better. I have confidence in those guys, and I’m not going to take that confidence away.”
Having a team with no seniors and just four juniors certainly points in a positive direction for the years ahead, but disciplined shooting and decision-making have been hard to come by on a team that averages roughly 15 turnovers per game.
“You can’t get better in one day,” Macon said. “Most of these guys are getting more minutes in college than they ever got in high school. They’re gaining experience, but they’re gaining it slowly. The pain of losing is enough for them that they are learning, and this will make us better for the future.”
Though it’s no excuse, Binghamton’s slate of games has not been the easiest. One early non-conference showdown pitted the Bearcats against the University of Missouri, who are now ranked No. 2 in the nation. But the Bearcats have lost every single game by at least two possessions, including a six-point loss to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, a team that now has a paltry overall record of 3-17.
“No one is blaming anybody,” Macon explained. “This year we came in with a whole new team, new freshmen, [guys] who didn’t play a lot last year … These guys are playing well. We’re getting better; better team, better coaching staff.”
While the conference season is only half over and any team can make a run in the America East tournament, the predicament of the Bearcats is unlike any other in the history of the program. The losing streak, now at 22 games counting the postseason loss to the University of Vermont last year, is not only the longest winless streak in the program’s 10-year Division I history by far, but just became the longest in the history of the University, dating all the way back to 1946. The previous record for futility was 21 games and spanned the 1955-56 and 1956-57 seasons.
Binghamton’s next shot at its first victory is Wednesday night at Stony Brook University (13-7, 8-1 AE), the top team in the conference. The Bearcats lost 60-54 to the Seawolves back on Jan. 5 at the Events Center.
“We have got to rebound the basketball, that’s been our biggest thing,” Macon said. “Certain things will come eventually, but we have to rebound the ball. We have to keep getting to the basket, play better defense, shoot better … We have to hold a lead, and those leads come with a whole lot of experience.”
Above all, Macon refuses to lose faith in his players, holding unwavering optimism about their abilities.
“My job is to always be confident and push them toward success,” he explained. “We keep fighting, we keep learning. Now, we’re in the new year, and I see the progress. You want to see wins, I want to win too, and I know my guys want to win. I want to see progress. I’m working with guys that have to learn how to win games. It doesn’t come easy, and it doesn’t come fast.”