Next year, I’m going to continue my Morning Java blog posts but I’m going to need some help to expand the site:

• Writers:  If you think you can contribute to The BU Zoo in anyway, let me know.  Breaking News, Stats, Scheduling, Recruiting, Kevin Broadus Correspondent, Opinion, Interviews, Where Are They Now, Around the League…it doesn’t matter to me.  Whatever you want to write about, I will probably be down for.
• Community Moderator:  I would like to re-start The BU Zoo message board.  I need a moderator to handle the day-to-day affairs of the message board. Reading the threads, stimulating discussion, enforcing rules, moving threads when posted in the wrong place, dealing with spammers, and other day to day stuff.  I’m going to handle the technical administration, so if you if you know how to use the internet and can check the board every day or every other day- you are qualified!
• Liveblogger: I experimented using Twitter and CoverItLive this year. Unfortunately, I’m in NYC.  My perspective comes from the streaming feed.  Someone that goes to home games would be able to do this a lot better than I could.  I’m looking for someone to tweet during breaks in the action telling everyone the score and what’s going on in the game.  All you need is a smartphone that can use Twitter.

If you think that you w0uld like to fill one of the above staff positions, or think you can help in another way. Send me an email at contact <at> thebuzoo <dot> com or if you belong to the America East forum send me a PM.

I feel worse for the players.  The only thing that I can lose from this is money (give it back Hartford!).  The kids playing this season lost a whole lot more.  The 8-8conference record that Macon and his boys turned out was quite an accomplishment considering how many players they lost and the few scholarships they had.  They lost their reward for putting up with the crap all season which they weren’t involved with.

And just like that its the off season.

• Press & Sun Bulletin: “Binghamton University’s men concluded their America East Conference basketball season with a 78-69 loss to Vermont on Sunday.  The Catamounts’ Marqus Blakely, two-time conference Player of the Year, contributed 17 points, five rebounds, five assists and three blocked shots on Senior Day in what may have been his final game in Patrick Gym.  Binghamton (13-18, 8-8 America East) was within four of Vermont with 3:24 remaining before committing three turnovers in a 36-second span, leading to seven consecutive Catamounts points and a 74-63 lead.  The Bearcats drew no closer than eight through the conclusion.  Fifth-seeded Binghamton will oppose fourth-seeded Boston University in an America East Conference Tournament quarterfinal, scheduled for a 2:45 p.m. tip-off Saturday in Hartford.  Freshman Dylan Talley had a game-high 20 points on 8-for-14 shooting and added a team-high four assists in 29 minutes. Junior forward Moussa Camara added 17 points, the 11th straight game he’s reached double figures. Sophomore center Kyrie Sutton chipped in 14 points on 6-for-9 shooting.”
• Burlington Free Press: “‘Greer Wright is one of the best offensive players in the league: He’s 6-7, he can shoot, and Garvey took him out of his game,’ UVM coach Mike Lonergan said. ‘That was a big key to the game.’  Binghamton erased a 10-point halftime deficit and took a 49-48 lead on Moussa Camara’s long 3-pointer with just less than 13 minutes remaining in regulation, Vermont rattled off the next seven points to regain control.  ‘They got a lot of offensive rebounds on us today; the last few days that hasn’t been happening,’ Binghamton coach Mark Macon said. ‘They have a lot of size in there; their big guys were getting the ball in there and laying it up.’”

• Press & Sun Bulletin: “Kyrie Sutton delivered his best performance in a Binghamton University jersey, scoring a career-high 18 points as Bearcats cruised to a 66-53 victory over Hartford in an America East Conference men’s basketball game on Wednesday night at the Events Center.  Greer Wright added 16 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists, with Dylan Talley adding 15 points for BU (13-17, 8-7 America East), which prevailed in front of 4,791 fans in its final regular-season home game this season.  The victory clinched the fifth seed for BU in next week’s America East tournament in Hartford.”

• Press & Sun Bulletin: “BU (12-17, 7-7 America East) is currently in fifth place in the America East and can clinch the fifth seed in next week’s conference tournament with a victory over the Hawks.  With a loss, there is the possibility of BU falling all the way to the seventh seed. Conference seeding, however, matters little to  Macon right now.  ‘I just want us to get better each game,’ Macon said. ‘This has nothing to do with the conference tournament. We not going into the conference tournament until it starts. I don’t want to jump the gun.’  The positives that BU displayed in its decisive victory over UMBC — good ball movement, rebounding proficiency — were severely lacking during its four-game losing streak, which occurred exclusively on the road and included losses by 42 points at Boston University and by 20 points at Stony Brook.”
• WICZ (Video): “If Binghamton University’s Student Association has their way, Basketball Coach Kevin Broadus will no longer coach at BU.  The association’s president says after reading about Broadus’ coaching conduct in Judge Kaye’s report, students no longer want him working at the university.  Therefore, the S.A. is formally calling for his immediate resignation as head coach.”

• Pipe Dream: “If you read the statement looking for anything like an administrative apology, you would have been extremely disappointed. In fact, the review was barely mentioned. The only quote DeFleur included to sum up the 99-page report, which implicated her and key University administrators as playing main roles in the scandal, was Judge Judith Kaye’s comment that BU was “one of the nation’s premier public universities” – one of DeFleur’s favorite phrases, and hardly Kaye’s own words.  We’re pretty sure that’s not the message Kaye’s team of lawyers was trying to send.  This kind of evasion seemed to be the real, and only, purpose of the statement. Instead of accepting the blame that so obviously lies at their feet, DeFleur and Swain made a mockery of themselves and the University by throwing around hollow rhetoric of honesty and commitment to values; we’ve all seen that their actions indicate otherwise. Honor and integrity are nowhere to be seen in this mess.”
• Pipe Dream: “The Bearcats’ star junior Greer Wright had an off game, converting on only one of eight shots for seven points while also turning the ball over four times. However, junior forward Mahamoud Jabbi, who has been hot of late, and freshman guard Dylan Talley picked up the slack and then some for the Bearcats. Jabbi and Talley scored 20 and 25 points, respectively – both career highs for the first-year Division I players. Jabbi also grabbed 11 rebounds in the game while Talley dished out five assists to only two turnovers. ‘We were just hitting on all cylinders today,’ Macon said.  Leading by just eight points, 20-12 with 11 minutes to play, the Bearcats caught fire and pushed out to a 46-29 halftime lead. Jabbi had 14 points and five rebounds in the first half.  Binghamton tallied a total of 18 assists, its highest output of the season. ‘I had them doing things in practice where I wouldn’t let them shoot the ball,’ said Binghamton interim head coach Mark Macon. ‘It showed today with how they shared the ball.’”
• Press & Sun Bulletin: “‘We wanted Judge (Judith) Kaye to lead the review and investigation, we wanted to begin immediately and contracting through the state takes a long time, and we did not want tuition or taxpayer dollars used,’ SUNY spokesman David Henahan said in an e-mail Monday.An Albany news Web site Monday raised questions about whether SUNY should have used a competitive-bidding process instead of directly hiring the law firm that employs retired New York Court of Appeals Chief Judge Judith Kaye, who headed the investigation. The probe cost $913,381, which is to be split between SUNY and BU.”
• WBNG (Video): “Noticeably absent on the Bearcat bench Sunday was assistant coach Mark Hsu.  He was prominently featured in retired Judge Judith Kaye’s 99-page audit of the program, named for assisting former player Malik Alvin pay his court fees after being arrested for stealing condoms at Wal-mart, and then again for helping Alvin fix a plagiarized school assignment.  Hsu did not travel with the team on their recent road trips, and after the game interim head coach Mark Macon was asked about his future with the program. Macon would only  say that he could not answer those questions.  Following that press conference, the university released a statement. ‘After consultation with America East commissioner Patrick Nero, interim director of athletics Jim Norris has determined that assistant coach Marc Hsu will not be coaching in practice or games until further notice.’”