Our men’s basketball team finds itself in a unique position 21 games into its 2011-12 season. The Binghamton Bearcats are in last place. Since the fall of the House of Broadus, the America East dungeon isn’t an unfamiliar place for the Bearcats. But they aren’t just at the bottom of their nine-team America East conference. They are 0-21, and are the worst team in Division I men’s basketball.

Of the 342 D-I squads in the nation — and with previously winless Towson University’s first win coming this past Saturday — our Bearcats are the only team not to put one in the W column, with 341 teams looking at us in the rear-view mirror.

This team is a shame. To put it into perspective, the average winning percentage of the other eight teams in the America East is .437, including 4-17 Hartford and 3-17 UMBC. The Bearcats don’t exactly play in the Big East or the ACC, but despite meager competition, the ‘Cats still can’t lick ‘em.

The player personnel is poor. Of course, that’s a given for the worst team in the country, but in fact, several members of the team are averaging more minutes now than they did in high school, according to coach Mark Macon. Blame bad coaching, blame bad recruiting, but it’s the players who have to go out and win games, and these players cannot play.

And what about that coaching and recruiting? Regarding the former, it’s hard to envision any head coach returning for another season when his team is the country’s worst team. Mark Macon is not the exception. Through 21 games — and let us remind you that they were all losses — this team has not improved and shows no signs of doing so.

Things look bleak. Who wants to come play for the worst team in the country? Maybe there are some mediocre high schoolers out there who want more playing time in college than they see now, but we shouldn’t count on that as a remedy.
Losing like this creates a vicious cycle. When a school doesn’t play well, recruits look past it. If a school can’t recruit, good coaches won’t want to risk job security by coaching a team that shows no promise for the future. And if a team has poor coaching and player development, play is poor, losses mount and we’re back to square one.

So what does it mean for Binghamton University on the whole? Aside from ending the embarrassing in-game promotions in order to increase student attendance, such as — we shit you not — the offer of free tuition for a semester, BU athletic brass needs to take action. Athletic director Patrick Elliott — who in all fairness, just got to BU — needs to grab the bull by the horns and tear the rug out from under the men’s basketball team at season’s end.
Changes are in order.