On the front page of its Sunday Sports section, The New York Times featured a picture of Binghamton University men’s basketball players D.J. Rivera and Malik Alvin suited up and sitting elbow-to-knee on the sideline.

To the chagrin of some in Binghamton University’s athletic department, however, the accompanying article was not about Rivera’s standing among the nation’s top 25 scorers or about the Bearcats’ ability to win while Alvin, a key player, battled injury.

This season, Binghamton’s Division I team has won 19 of 27 games, including a 12-3 record in the America East Conference, in which they are tied for first place. Whether the winning is coming at too great a cost off the hardwood, however, was the question examined by The Times collegiate sports beat writer Pete Thamel.

According to some sources in the story, the school could be trading its moral, ethical and academic archetypes in exchange for the notoriety of a strong Division I team.

The Bearcats have had their share of negative publicity over the past year: in May a former player was arrested and charged with putting a student into a coma at a local bar before fleeing the country; in November a transfer player was charged with assault and theft; and in January a player was suspended for violating team rules. Most recently, just two weeks ago, a transfer quit the team for his “loss of interest” in the game, according to a team spokesman.

Thamel also reported concerns some BU faculty expressed regarding players in the academic setting, including texting during class and playing hookie.

An adjunct lecturer in BU’s School of Education and Human Development, Sally Dear, berated the team for being a “continual nuisance” in the piece. According to The Times, she wished she had “more academically prepared and serious students,” and said that she was constantly pressured by the administration to “bend the rules.”

“It was such a polarized viewpoint,” said BU’s Director of Athletics Joel Thirer. “Our administration holds professionalism and integrity in all the work that we do, and that needs to be stressed.”

“I was disappointed [with the article],” Thirer added. “It was a narrow and slanted view of what goes on, and the writer clearly went into the negative agenda.”

Dennis Lasser, a tenured associate professor in the School of Management, acted as a contact between the admissions office and the athletic department in his former role as a faculty athletic representative. Lasser told Thamel he has seen a lowering of standards at BU since Broadus’ hiring. Broadus, a former assistant at Georgetown, was reported by The Times last February to have recruited players of poor academic standing from high schools described as “diploma mills.” Thamel wrote the story.

With the team in the best position it’s ever been in its eight-year Division I history to make March Madness, BU head coach Kevin Broadus has been vocal about looking past the team’s off-court incidents.

“We have stuff at stake and we can’t let anything at this time bring us down,” the second-year head coach told Pipe Dream Monday. “We are at a point now where we just need to look ahead and focus on everything that’s in front of us.”

The article also quoted former Bearcats basketball player Darren McBride. McBride, who played as a freshman for the Bearcats last season, stated how there was a lack of control over the team off-court and how the team “drank alcohol and smoked marijuana.”

McBride left the team following a game against Vermont in January of last season. During the game, McBride left the bench for what Broadus termed an “in-house matter.”

Tim Schum, a retired BU professor, coach and athletic administrator, was quoted by The Times as saying the program is on a “slippery slope.” In an interview with Pipe Dream Monday, Schum said that Thamel had fairly reported the facts, but said that he could have also shed light on the accomplishments of the athletic program as a whole.

“I think that it was too bad that it wasn’t more balanced from a standpoint that there couldn’t be room to also indicate that we’ve had tremendous success within our athletic program,” he said. “From Quiller’s NCAA accomplishment last spring to off-field accomplishments, like scoring the highest combined collegiate GPA in the Division I program by the men’s soccer team.”

Schum, however, reiterated how Thamel’s objective was to talk about the basketball program, not the athletic program.

“He’s only got so many words [that can be printed],” added Schum. “He can’t really go beyond that. I talked with him for well over an hour and the thing he came out with, which I thought was an accurate quote, was that I thought the University was on a slippery slope when it came to the basketball program.”

Thirer said he felt uneasy with the story from the start.

“The direction of his tone was something that we noticed while we were doing the interview,” said Thirer, who has been at BU since 1989 and oversaw the team’s move to Division I. “We kind of sensed that this would not turn out well.”

Some Bearcats fans felt The Times was accurate in its coverage, while others found the report to be off-point.

“I think the article was slanted,” said Binghamton freshman George Greve. “They interviewed a lot of people that were no longer with the University or with the program. They could have gotten a student’s point of view and their outlook on everything that has been going on this year.”

Linette Springhorn, a former Pipe Dream staff member who graduated in 2005, disagrees.

“When I first read the headline in The Times, I thought, ‘I couldn’t agree more,’” she said. “I think you can’t question The [Times]. They’re the end-all and be-all of responsible reporting, [and] their harsh criticism speaks volumes. To have such a scathing article appear in The Times, on a Sunday no less, assures it will be read by a very large audience. Many in the metro area undoubtedly read the article, and unfortunately I’m sure many parents considering sending their children to BU may reconsider.”

As for Broadus, the article’s central figure, he said that he doesn’t have time to think about the story with the America East Championship around the corner.

“It’s that time of the year. I just have to get through,” he said. “Don’t be bitter, be better. We are just trying to win the next game and we can’t concentrate on that right now.”