Kevin Broadus made no excuses for his team’s play as the Binghamton University men’s basketball team was out-played, out-hustled and outworked in Saturday’s 71-62 loss to the Hartford Hawks at the Events Center.
No excuses, but his message was clear: The Bearcats have a long way to go before they can be considered an elite team and no one is bigger than the team.
“We lost, it’s as simple as that,” the BU head coach said after the America East Conference loss, which dropped the Bearcats (10-11, 6-3 AE) out of first place in the conference. “They were quicker, faster and our guys didn’t step up. They were better than us today, simple as that.”
On a day where 4,902 fans came out, an Events Center regular season record, Binghamton turned the ball over 17 times and failed to hold onto a two-point halftime lead before being out-scored by 11 in the second half.
Bearcats players were seen bickering on the floor and after the game Broadus did not make his players available to the media.
“Today we stepped out of character,” Broadus said. “I won’t speak on it but we’ve had some issues we’ve been dealing with the past few days. I hope these guys feel the hurt you take away when you lose a game like this.”
Hartford finished with 12 steals, while the Bearcats had just four.
“The toughness factor wasn’t there,” Broadus said. “We didn’t hustle for the loose balls. [Hartford] wanted it more — they did the things we didn’t do, the things that don’t show up in the stat sheet.”
Binghamton entered with a five-game win streak, but prior to this game Broadus said that a “strange cockiness” in his team worried him.
“People look at it different than I,” Broadus said. “They say, ‘Oh, you guys can beat Hartford.’ No. No, we can’t beat Hartford, we didn’t beat Hartford the first time, we can’t beat Hartford.”
“I tried to explain to these guys [Hartford] is better than they think they are,” he added. “The last two times they’ve been better than us. Every game is a big game, nobody is that much better than anyone in this league.”
Binghamton led until the eight-minute mark of the second half, when the Hawks took the lead off a pair of Michael Turner free-throws. The game then went back and forth until Hartford’s Joe Zeglinski drilled back-to-back wide open 3-pointers to give Hartford a 58-54 lead with 3:53 remaining.
Binghamton couldn’t answer on the other end and never got closer than four points.
Zeglinski led all players with 21 points. Lazar Trifunovic was top for the Bearcats with 19 points. Trifunovic added 10 rebounds for his seventh double-double of the season.
Hartford’s head coach, Dan Liebovitz, said he felt like his team got away with one.
“I’m very happy that we were able to escape with a win,” Liebovitz said. “It’s tough. [Binghamton]’s very physical and athletic. We were very fortunate to get the win.”
Notes: The crowd was the third largest in Events Center history, with the other two games coming in the 2005 America East Tournament … The Bearcats shot 21.1 percent from 3-point range … Zeglinski’s four 3-pointers equaled that of the Bearcats … BU’s Reggie Fuller led all players with 11 rebounds.