Binghamton University received a letter with some very good news in the mail yesterday. And according to the letter, a preliminary inquiry by the NCAA found no major infractions in the practices of BU’s basketball program. Does this close the book on the athletics scandal at last?

Not a chance.

But if this investigation stands, it may end the first chapter in the story of Division I Binghamton basketball writ large. The stink endures, at least in part, but we may be able to begin to put our bad ol’ days behind us.

Here’s the Sparknotes on Chapter 1, in case you forgot or happen to be an underclassman.

Chapter 1:

Highs ‘ conference tournament victory, students rush courts, campus in frenzy, national television broadcasts, Blue Devils faced, players idolized, coach revered.

Lows ‘ condoms, crack and a three-month coma, State Department showdowns with Serbia, accusations of racism, academic leniency, pressure on professors and grade changes, money being given to players, debit cards stolen. End scene.

Now, two investigations and a thorough house-cleaning later, Chapter 1 seems to be over.

Interim President C. Peter Magrath seemed ready to use Monday’s press conference as a pep rally, or something like it. Cracking jokes, working the room, the amicable veteran tried to make a clean break with our very recent past and simultaneously celebrate our program’s future.

‘People who look into crystal balls wind up eating broken glass,’ he said, refusing to speculate on Broadus’ future. But in this Cinderella story gone bad, we’re all too familiar with the taste of broken glass.

But despite his efforts, there are still plenty of questions left unanswered, many loose ends still untied.

Former head coach Kevin Broadus’ racial discrimination suit against the school still taints the air. He’s still employed by the University, but only in a desk job, and only until his contract expires. If we were bettin’ men, we’d say he’s out after that, but that’s a long time to have an elephant in the room.

The NCAA’s investigation brings up more questions than it answered. The tone of the letter sent to the University, which was a brief, one-paragraph statement, was cordial ‘ a far cry from the audit that SUNY commissioned. Judge Judith Kaye’s 99-page, million-dollar survey left little to the imagination, it was aggressive and was exhaustively researched. The NCAA’s letter didn’t even specify what time period that the investigation referred to.

The biggest question though, for Magrath and those who will follow him, is whether we can even walk away from our basketball past at all.

Unlike many other schools with teams that have had problems balancing academics and athletics, we are a new school with a very new program. We have no real tradition of propriety. Our D-I basketball program is so young and was so rushed that outright corruption ‘ or at best, obvious rule-bending ‘ is the only tradition we have to go on.

How can you totally walk away from the only thing you’ve ever known? Even after this interim period ‘ in the coming months we will find a new president, provost and athletic director ‘ Binghamton basketball will still be Binghamton basketball.

We see this less as a clean slate than as a second chapter to the story. In years to come, we hope that we can move on from our troubled past ‘ without forgetting why we had to.