“At Cincinnati, I wouldn’t be able to graduate on time, or I would have had to change my major, which I really didn’t want to do,” Wright told the Press & Sun Bulletin.

Returning with him are sophomore Kyrie Sutton and Mahamoud Jabbi.  Sutton was rumored to have transferred to Rider.  Jabbi, who has one year of eligibility remaining, will return for a graduate year.

• 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.’”

The Julius Allen story got picked up by the AP and a couple of other papers.  It has to make you wonder why they did it now.  They either made this move way too late or they found something type of smoking gun.  Most America East fans know Allen by reputation when he was an assistant at Northeastern.  Something tells me that this move wasn’t made to make the coaching staff more heart healthy.

• Congratulations to Dylan Talley (and sorry I missed this earlier this week) on his Rookie of the Week award: “Talley led all America East rookies by averaging 11.8 points in four games last week. The freshman guard averaged 14.3 points per contest at the CBE Classic West Carolina Sub-Regional, including a career-best 21-point effort in a win over Arkansas-Monticello Wednesday. Talley, who had 11 points in each of the tournament’s first two games against Duquesne and Western Carolina, also averaged 3.0 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 1.3 steals and shot 49 percent from the field.”
• Pipe Dream has a preview of the games this weekend: “ Coming off a 58-50 loss in a close game to the talented Rider University Broncs, Binghamton University men’s basketball team (2-5) will look to redeem itself in its next two games. In a three-day span, the Bearcats will be hosting the Bucknell University Bison of the Patriot League and Marshall University Thundering Herd of Conference USA in front of an always-supportive Events Center crowd.”
• Press & Sun Bulletin has an article on the Bucknell game and on Macon’s lineup changes which include Kryie Sutton and Moussa Camara coming off the bench: “‘We’ve shaken up the lineup a little bit, and we’ve done well in that area in trying to get units in the game that play well together and bringing guys up off the bench to keep the ship moving.’ The shake-up Macon referred to was the insertion of center Umur Peten and forward Mahamoud Jabbi into the starting lineup prior the game against Arkansas-Monticello, with opening-night starters Moussa Camara and Kyrie Sutton now coming off the bench. Jabbi, a high-energy guy, has averaged six points and seven rebounds in his last two games. Peten, a 6-foot-9 junior transfer from Middle East Technical University in his native Turkey, is coming off a team-high 14-point effort in the loss to Rider.  ‘Umur brings understanding, he brings a fundamental set to the game,’ Macon said. ‘He’s a basic guy, he’s not the most athletic guy, he’s not the best shooter, but he gets the job done because he knows how to play.’”

The great stat to see was the Binghamton eFG of nearly 55%. The hot offense was lead surprisingly by Turkish walk-on Umur Peten, who was 6 of 8 from the field for 14 points including one from downtown. Mahamoud Jabbi was 3-3 for 6 points and 8 boards and Kyrie Sutton, who once again only played 15 points, was 6-6 for 12 points and 6 boards.

However, looking at the other three metrics of the Four Factors you can see some problems. The Bearcats turned the basketball over 19 times, include 9 from Dylan Talley. The Bearcats only drew 8 fouls while giving up 19. Finally and once again, we couldn’t keep Rider off the offensive boards. With all of those turnovers and offensive boards, Binghamton was lucky that Rider was having a bad offensive day or this could have gotten ugly.
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It seemed like our Bearcats did everything right this. We shot the ball well, we forced more turnovers than A-M, and we go to the free-throw line at a better rate than A-M. The only thing that was very concerning about this game was the fact that Binghamton was out-rebounded by a DII, especially on the offensive glass.

We know that this team isn’t going to be that good in comparison to last years’ team. This means that rebounding is going to be very important for any chance of success this year. Defensive rebounds end your opponents possessions. Offensive rebounds give you extra possessions. If we get out-rebounded, that means that our opponent will have more possessions than us. The way that our offense is running, that could be a victory death sentence.

Speaking of rebounding: Kryie Sutton 15 minutes, 3 rebounds.

Western Carolina Recaps:

• Press & Sun Bulletin:”Wright was a bright spot, hitting more 3-pointers Tuesday night (four) than he had over his four previous games combined (three). He struck for 17 of his points in the second half, and his 21 points overall were Binghamton’s highest single-game total thus far this season.”
• AP: “The Catamounts (3-1) dominated the first half, rolling to a 33-13 halftime score. They were 16-for-26 from the field (61.5 percent) and held Binghamton (1-4) to only three first-half field goals in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Classic.”

Looking through the box score, the thing that frighten me the most was how clearly the lack of a true point guard is hurting this team. Defacto PG Dylan Talley had 6 TOs and 1 Ast. In fact, Binghamton only had 4 assisted baskets the whole game. To put it in perspective, St. Bonnie had 3 different players with 4 assists. Kyrie Sutton also had only 1 rebound in 19 minutes. Hopefully as the season goes on, the Bearcats play more and more like a team on the offensive end or else we have the potential to be the worst offensive team in DI. I don’t want to think about the things that NJIT would do to this team.

In the second half, things turned around offensively mostly because of the play of sophomore big man Kyrie Sutton.  Sutton looked like the best offensive player on the floor, even though he was matched up with High School All-American Dante Taylor.  He showcased a nice jump hook (but he needs another move) and even had a dominating dunk that was called back on a travel.  Physically and skill-wise, Sutton looked like he belonged in the Big East.  If he can keep up it on offensive, the Bearcats will have more wins than originally people thought.

The Four Factors can tell us a couple things about Binghamton. First, we are having trouble on defense. Pittsburgh kept getting open looks, while the Bearcat D kept being caught out of position.

Second, we had too many turnovers again. In the first half, Pittsburgh kept trapping on the sidelines leading to many Bearcat turnovers and not too many total points. Big props for Jamie Dixon keeping it classy in the blowout and changing their defensive strategy in the second half.

Third, Bearcats got to the line because of Greer Wright. Besides Sutton, Wright looked like a bright spot with his ability to get to the line. He almost had more FT attempts than Pitt had total. The only problem with that is , besides Wright, Lukusa was the only other Bearcat to attempt a FT.

The Bearcat offense struggled at times, but we have hope and his name is Dylan Talley.  Talley was obvious the best player on the court for the Bearcats.  He showed off an all-around offense game.  He hit jumpers, he penetrated, he drived, and he even got called for a foul trying to post up a smaller guards.  It was just a DII opponent but there was star potential there.

Binghamton’s rotation is going to be tight but we are not going to be completely devoid of players.  I really liked the lineup of Lukusa, Talley, Camara, Wright, and Sutton.   Lukusa was gritty as usual and did a pretty good job running the point but had too many turnovers.  Camara and Wright looked great in transition and showed some range out to the three-point line.  Sutton did a good job playing defense and rebounding.

I would like to see more out of Taylor Johnston.  He was just  jacking up shots in the first half and got benched for a good portion of the second.  I didn’t like what I saw from Mahamoud Jabbi offensively, but he did grab 7 rebounds and had 2 steals.

I still think this season going be bad, but maybe not too bad.

• SUNY Research Foundation is under federal investigation for fraud.  Ironically, the Research Foundation is bankrolling the Binghamton basketball investigation.
• Yahoo has posted its Binghamton season preview.  Yahoo has our lineup slated at PG Christian Lukusa (not my typo), SG Moussa Camara, SF Greer Wright, PF Pina Guillaume, C Kyrie Sutton.  I never seen these guys before but I think that Taylor Johnson or Dylan Talley gets the start over Guillaume.  Will be interesting to see who picks up the slack after Lukusa and Camara
• Missed this article over the weekend in the Daily News on how Binghamton disgraced itself for money.  I hate how people slander the Event Center in articles like this.  Binghamton was selling out the West Gym.  The only other venue in town is the decrepit Broome County Arena.  In hindsight, I wish the Event Center bigger with the opportunity to add on ice.   That being said, I wouldn’t be surprised if Binghamton led the America East in attendance again this season.