What a season it has been for the basketball squad. The words catastrophic, cataclysmic or any other with the prefix cata- just cannot adequately describe the events that have unfolded over the last two years.

I wanted to wait until the Bearcats season was over before divulging any of my thoughts on this matter, because every couple of weeks, new information would come in completely changing the story.

When The New York Times sportswriter Pete Thamel berated the school last year for gambling the academic integrity of the school for its basketball squad, the students, including myself, stood by the Bearcats and the administration, refusing to believe that the school would go to such great lengths to have a successful Division I team.

But alas, Thamel was right in the end.

There are so many questions a person can ask, but one should be posed to the administration: Why did the school wait so long to stop this mess from growing?

They had to wait for a basketball player to be arrested for allegedly selling crack cocaine to dismantle the team when they should have taken action based on the other warnings.

What about when the players were struggling so much with their academics that the school had to create specific independent studies to help boost their grades? What about the alleged marijuana charges or the debit card incident? What about the warnings given to Binghamton University President Lois DeFleur by other America East presidents, or when AE athletic directors scolded former athletic director Joel Thirer about the direction in which he was taking the basketball program? My opinion is that if the school and the athletic department put their foot down before things escalated, we would not be in this mess now.

It is still my belief that people should be given second chances at fulfilling their dreams, whether it be attending college or playing basketball. However, the message given to the players should have been strong. They should have told them that this is a University of integrity and anything outside of that would not be tolerated. Instead, the administration and the coaches tried to accommodate their faults in every way possible.

What is saddening, however, is how the players were all dismissed in one great sweep. They waited until things were at their worst to take action.

Now you have players like David Fine, who was booted off the team for “glassy eyes,” and transfers like Malik Alvin, Corey Chandler and Paul Crosby, whose story still remains shrouded in mystery.

What is most frustrating is how the team was removed from participating from the AE tourney with just three days’ notice.

When the America East preseason poll came out before the start of the men’s basketball season, it predicted the Bearcats to finish dead last in the conference. And even when interim head coach Mark Macon propelled his squad to finish fifth, the poll was still right. There would be no opportunity to defend their title and there would be no opportunity to participate in the tournament, even when Binghamton played by the book this time around and with no star players from last year’s squad.

How can you take away a team’s postseason when it was clearly a lack of responsibility from the athletic department?

I hope for the sake of this institution and the sake of the athletic department that we don’t have this mess on our hands again.