• 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.’”

My dad told me yesterday that he will be wearing his Stony Brook shirt tonight.  I can’t blame him.

• Press & Sun Bulletin: “Despite findings critical of her role as overseer of the Binghamton University’s athletic department, Lois DeFleur will be allowed to retire as president on her own terms.  SUNY officials said Friday they’ve had no discussions about the possibility of removing DeFleur before her summer retirement date, despite a spate of incidents that included suspensions and a drug arrest in the basketball program, a sexual-harassment lawsuit, the reassignment of the athletics director and the benching, with pay, of the basketball coach.  ‘We have no intention to try to alter her schedule’ to leave July 30, said Carl Hayden, the attorney who chairs the SUNY Board of Trustees.”
• Press & Sun Bulletin:”BU has won six straight games over the Seawolves (17-7, 9-2 AE), including a 64-62 victory on Jan. 12 at the Events Center when Greer Wright nailed the game-winning shot with 1.8 seconds left.  Wright, last week named the America East Player of the Week for the third time this season, is averaging team-best 15.4 points for the Bearcats.  Since losing back-to-back games at BU and Maine, Stony Brook has won five straight games to move atop the America East standings, most recently an 83-64 home victory over then-second place Maine on Wednesday.  In the win over Maine, Muhammad El-Amin scored a game-high 24 points. El-Amin leads Stony Brook in scoring with a 15.5 per game average.  ‘I don’t look at standings, but I know the other coaches and the kids do,’ Macon said. ‘I’m just worried about us getting better, but I know this game is going to be a dogfight.’”
• Wall Street Journal: “Binghamton University’s basketball program is a big deal in the America East Conference, and earned the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament last season. But while no one would confuse the Bearcats with a big-time athletic machine, the lawlessness and culture of entitlement, malfeasance and favoritism exposed by a recent State University of New York-commissioned report on the controversy-plagued program puts Binghamton up there among college sports’ troubled programs.”
• Deadspin: “In a report from the Department of Obviousness, Binghamton’s attempt to build a competitive basketball team resulted in numerous violations in recruiting, academics, and assorted criminal behaviors. So, mission successful if they wanted to build a real D1 program.”
• Pipe Dream: “In its final pages, the report recommends that BU establish a “more active role” in oversight and control of the athletics program, and that SUNY should consider appointment of an athletic oversight officer.  ‘At times, as this report shows, the intensity of the desire to win may undermine and compromise that primary [academic] mission,’ it reads. ‘The president took no corrective action in her role as the supervisor of the athletic director and the person charged with ultimate responsibility for BU’s intercollegiate athletic program.’ DeFleur, who over winter break announced her plans to retire this July, held a press conference with campus media groups Tuesday. Pipe Dream reporters, who had requested an interview several times, were present at the conference. In total, the reporters were allowed to ask three pre-approved questions before the meeting came to an end.  At the conference, DeFleur said she will have no administrative involvement with the University once she retires, aside from giving her support. She said she believes ‘change is good.’”
• Pipe Dream: “Despite Pipe Dream editors practically begging her for an interview, DeFleur only consented to sit down to pre-approved questions at her recent press conference, in which she gave an impressive speech and answered nothing at all. She was then conveniently out of town when the audit results were released. The hypocrisy is sickening, especially coming from the woman who has continuously touted our claim as the Premier Public University of the Northeast. All the while, she has been privately putting academics second to her NCAA dreams.  And now, after dragging this school through the mud on her quest to D-1 fame, DeFleur is leaving the premises and not looking back, leaving us to deal with the mess.  With all due respect Ms. President, we’ve been taught that it’s honorable to own up to your mistakes, not set up others to take the fall and cover your own ass. Your skeletons are coming out of your airplane hangar, and if you have any respect for the school you’ve claimed to love for the past 20 years, you should show your commitment by sticking around to help us salvage this school and its reputation.”

• Press & Sun Bulletin: “A report Thursday from the State University of New York, produced at a cost of $913,000, found: * Academic irregularities. An assistant basketball coach and a player discussed the coach “rewording” the player’s paper. Coach Kevin Broadus worked to get a grade changed. An independent-study class was created for four athletes.  * Admissions issues: Basketball recruits who didn’t meet academic standards were admitted. Coaches tried to circumvent BU’s established process for reviewing athletes’ applications for admission. * Crime/drug issues: Star player “Derrick” D.J. Rivera illegally bought a television and clothing using a debit card that wasn’t his, as teammates looked on. In other incidents, other players smoked or possessed marijuana. * Talk of improper benefits. A player claimed – but later recanted – that a coach paid for players’ cell phones. An assistant coach texted a player that the coach would give the player money for gas.  * A cover-up attempt. A coach labored to resolve a marijuana-possession charge against a key player before the case reached town court.”
• Press & Sun Bulletin: “Gerald Mollen is happy to finally get his hands on the Binghamton University report.  The Broome County District Attorney said information contained in the 102-page document will help his office move forward with criminal charges against four former basketball players allegedly involved in making purchases with a stolen debit card.  To this point, Mollen said, his hands have been somewhat tied…After officers reviewed security videos from the stores where the card was used, Lukusa met with police and identified D.J. Rivera, Malik Alvin and Paul Crosby – all BU players – as the men in the video. Later, another player, Corey Chandler, was identified as the fourth individual.”
• Press & Sun Bulletin: “‘Honestly, I haven’t seen the report,’ said Rivera, who added he had no plans to read the lengthy document. “We go to class every day and play basketball when we can. We’re regular students.  ‘I have no thoughts about it. That’s it. Nothing really.’  Alvin was equally evasive.  ‘I’m not too worried about it,’ Alvin said. ‘Whatever they do, they have to do. I’m just concentrating on my education.’ Fine, who was dismissed from the team shortly after campus police discovered marijuana in his dormitory room following a complaint, was a little  more forthcoming with his thoughts about the report.  ‘I can’t speak for everyone else, but my situation is, the report said my eyes were glassy,’ Fine said. ‘They were trying to imply that I was high. I passed the drug test a week after the incident happened. I can’t control what they write in the paper, but I know I passed the test.’  Fine said he was in his room alone, but that the marijuana wasn’t his.  ‘I’m not going to blame anyone else,’ Fine said.”
• Press & Sun Bulletin: “Admissions officials felt slighted, ignored and sometimes bullied as Binghamton University basketball coaches tried to get recruits into school despite questionable qualifications.  That’s the picture painted after a four-month SUNY investigation, which concluded that coach Kevin Broadus recommended admission of a recruit who had no academic qualifications supporting admission, and pushed the university to admit a transfer student who had been kicked off his previous college team for disciplinary reasons.  ‘Coach Broadus recommended (Corey) Chandler’s admission to BU without disclosing to Admissions that Chandler had been dismissed from the Rutgers athletic program,’ the report says.”
• Inside Higher Ed: “A scathing investigative report of myriad academic improprieties committed by the men’s basketball program at the State University of New York at Binghamton implicates its outgoing president and former athletics director for their lack of oversight. The independent audit, commissioned last fall by Nancy L. Zimpher, SUNY’s chancellor, was led by Judith S. Kaye, former chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals. The report, which cost SUNY $913,381, was released Thursday. In it, Kaye chronicles Binghamton’s rapid  transition in the National Collegiate Athletic Association from a low-profile Division III, or non-scholarship, program to a high-profile Division I program with a surprisingly successful men’s basketball team during the two-decade tenure of Lois B. DeFleur, who announced her retirement as president last month, and Joel Thirer, its athletics director, who retired amid scandal last fall.”
• New York Times: “The Binghamton travesty was certified Thursday in a special report issued by a panel led by Judith S. Kaye, a former chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals.  This cautionary tale shows how Binghamton University, with 11,500 undergraduates holding an excellent average College Board score of 1,290, was held hostage by an upgraded basketball program that forgot to honor academic standards or, for that matter, normal ethics or honesty.  The administrators at Binghamton might as well have leased out a portion of the campus to a counterfeiting operation or a prostitution ring or a drug mill. Go all the way. Instead, a few administrators had the bright idea of turning Binghamton into a powerhouse capable of reaching the N.C.A.A. tournament. What a lousy goal. What poor judgment. By so-called educators.”
• ESPN: “The report documents how Binghamton officials compromised academic standards in order to build a winning men’s basketball team, details how coaches and athletic officials at Binghamton pressured admissions staffers to admit questionable recruits and chronicles previously-unreported allegations of criminal behavior on the part of several former basketball players.  The report recommends hiring an “athletic oversight officer” for the entire State University of New York system, reporting to the chancellor and Board of Trustees on admissions, the academic progress and behavior of student-athletes, and rules compliance.  Citing text-message exchanges, the SUNY report also suggests Binghamton coaches made cash payments to players and assisted them with academic assignments.  ‘I am disappointed that a great institution like Binghamton University would, in any way, because of its athletic program, compromise its terrific academic reputation,’ SUNY chancellor Nancy Zimpher said Thursday in a conference call with reporters. The SUNY report also cites potential NCAA violations by former Binghamton coach Kevin Broadus, who was placed on paid leave by the school last October.”

• NPR: “The sorrow is that college sports have the capacity to soil almost anyone who is enticed by them. Lois DeFleur was the president of Binghamton University for 19 years. She did an amazing job for Binghamton, academic division. But when Binghamton tried to go big-time basketball, it ended up in a scandal, and President DeFleur was tarnished. The other day, she said she was stepping down for personal reasons. The ones who are hurt by sports and leave always say that, just like the coaches who jump and leave their old teams in the lurch always proclaim that it’s a new challenge.”

Lots of DeFluer coverage this morning:

• Inside Higher Ed: “Lois B. DeFleur will retire this summer as president of the State University of New York at Binghamton. During her 19 years leading the campus, its competitiveness in admissions has skyrocketed and its academic reputation has grown. DeFleur also encouraged the growth of international initiatives. But during the last year, Binghamton has been shaken by scandals in its men’s basketball program, whose push for national prominence DeFleur had championed.”
• Ithaca Journal: “Spanning two decades, DeFleur’s vision helped accelerate BU’s transition from the small liberal arts college that it was in a former life into a university center in the SUNY system, prized for its graduate studies, research programs and range of professional degrees offered by its six schools and colleges. It is a process that continues today as the university continues to expand its facilities.With an estimated 15,000 students and successful Division I athletics programs – despite last year’s men’s basketball scandal, BU has become a major influence on the Southern Tier as well as a major employer with DeFleur as the CEO. With that much responsibility right on campus, DeFleur could easily occupy herself with all things BU, to the exclusion of the wider community. But to the contrary, she has connected with leaders all over the area and throughout the education world, becoming a ubiquitous presence in the Southern Tier.”
• Press & Sun Bulletin: “‘BU would benefit from hiring a leader who has vision both for the university and for the community,’ said Libous, a Binghamton Republican who graduated from what is now the SUNY Institute of Technology in Utica. ‘She was able to accomplish pretty much everything she set out to accomplish.’  Asked what qualities she would like to see in her successor, DeFleur stressed growth, and said BU is well-positioned for that.  ‘My successor needs to continue the work … to be a tireless advocate to continue the growth and development at Binghamton,’ she said. The fact that the school is relatively young — it opened in 1946 as Triple Cities College and became part of SUNY in 1950 — will make it attractive for presidential applicants who see its potential for continued growth, she said.”

In other news:

• Press & Sun Bulletin: “Two local men are going to prison, while the alleged leader in a near-fatal beating remains free in Serbia.  Broome County Judge Martin E. Smith on Wednesday sentenced Sanel Softic and Edin Dzubar to two years in state prison for their role in the May 4, 2008, beating of Bryan Steinhauer.  Meanwhile, Miladin Kovacevic, 22, the primary culprit in the beating that nearly killed Steinhauer, jumped his $100,000 bail and fled to his native Serbia using an emergency passport authorities say was supplied by Serbian diplomats.”

Oh yeah we also are playing (overpriced) BU tonight for second place in the America East!