I’m on DVR delay to watch later. That means I have to enter social media deprivation.

I’ll be back after I watch with my thoughts. In the meantime, if you get to watch or go to the game. Please share.

Years from now, the story of the Binghamton Bearcats will be told as a cautionary campfire tale to scare overly ambitious athletic directors at low-mid-majors and coaches looking to take shortcuts of the potential dangers.

From their first NCAA appearance ever and widely expected to win the America East in 2010 to a mess.

Six months after losing to Duke in the first round of the 2009 NCAA Tournament, Binghamton (1-0) was in the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

In a five-week span beginning in late September, six players were kicked off the team, including star guard Emanuel “Tiki” Mayben, arrested for distribution of cocaine; athletic director Joel Thirer resigned; coach Kevin Broadus was placed on an indefinite paid leave of absence; the athletic department underwent an independent review by the State University of New York; and the school self-reported to the NCAA for secondary violations under Broadus.

Then, after all that, the Bearcats — the conference’s defending champion — blew off the American East preseason Media Day in Hartford last month.

…

Mayben was joined by five other players kicked off the team two days later (reasons were not given by their dismissals). Among them were the team’s top scorer, guard D.J. Rivera; guard Malik Alvin, the team’s third-leading scorer; and former Rutgers transfer Corey Chandler.

Three weeks before the start of practice, Binghamton didn’t have enough players to hold a live scrimmage. Former Temple great Mark Macon, an assistant under Broadus, was promoted to interim coach Oct. 14, three days before the start of practice.

That is a heavily abbreviated and fairly sanitized version of how bad things are.

As it stands, the Beacats of SUNY-Binghamton have only 7 players on scholarships. Days before the season started they had tryouts to have more walk-ons if only to get bodies to practice against.

It showed as the Bearcats managed to win their season opener 54-49 over D-2 Bloomsburg. A team that won 4 games last season and well here’s some of their competition: IUP, Slippery Rock, Kutztown, Clarion and other forces in the PSAC.

It’s a situation that has the 40-year old, never been a head coach before Macon spouting cliches at every turn trying to be positive.

“We play to win,” Macon said. “I guess they put their pants or shorts on like we do. We’re men, we’re trying to win. We respect our opponents, we also want to win.”

…

“It takes time, we’re only two games in (including the exhibition game against Holy Family), with a month or so of practice,” Macon said. “We have a whole new team. Now we have to build these things on a daily basis.”I wish it could happen in one day, but it doesn’t happen like that. I do have confidence in all my guys.”

Enough. Enough with the cliches.

“There is always opportunity in adversity,” Macon said. “There are always good things that come from facing adversity. If you press coal long enough you get a diamond. We’ll go through our ups and downs. We’ll try to get better. But we’re always going to play hard and play to win.”

Something  in the notes that Pitt turned down the ESPN Hoops Marathon last year because of a less than friendly time slot. Good for Pitt. This is a great little gimmick, but Pitt and the Big East already bend over too much with their football deal with ESPN. 5:30 is going to be tricky enough.

It should be interesting to see what kind of crowd comes out for the game tomorrow evening. A 5:30 p.m. weekday start is unprecedented at Pitt. Not only are most people working until 5 o5 6, but the traffic getting to Oakland will be interesting to say the least at that time of the day. Jamie Dixon said today he has no idea what to expect.

Lots of aggravation I’m guessing from those trying to get to the Pete.

Aaron Berry took a lot of criticism early in the season. The corner was another player who fell far short of expectations in 2008. Considering his doghouse status in the spring, he had little goodwill banked. He also struggled early in the season and then got injured in the UConn game and had to miss the Rutgers game.

Oddly, since coming back he’s been solid. Put it this way: the complaints have been very, very limited. He may not be the shut-down corner that Revis was, but he had been doing the job in a way that has reminded me of Shawntae Spencer.

Berry had been doing a solid job on Tate in the ND game, but went out with a shoulder injury (again) in the second half. Ricky Gary came in and did decently in relief, but he came out as well with an injury. After the Buddy Jackson flag fest from the 4th quarter of the Syracuse game, the coaches were left putting in Antwuan Reed, who was no match for Tate. That as much as anything was a major reason why the ND offense seemed to wake up in the 4th quarter.

It wasn’t surprising to see nothing from the national and ND media perspective. I mean, in part the Domers have a script in their losses where they stumble along for the first 3 quarters and stage a furious comeback in the 4th that succeed (Michigan State) or fall short (USC and Navy). So that was familiar.

Pitt’s defense hadn’t face a team ranked higher in total offense than 30th (N.C, State) in the 120-team Football Bowl Subdivision and more than half of the offenses they clashed with ranked below 70th. N.C. State was also the only top 30 passing offense Pitt had had to deal with.

The Irish came in fifth in total offense and sixth in passing offense. But they took too long to find any kind of offensive rhythm against the Panthers, and finished with a season-low 349 total yards.

Clausen’s final numbers weren’t Heisman-esque (27-of-42 for 283 yards, 1 TD and one interception), but he and Tate (9 receptions, 113 yards) were all that kept the Panthers from turning the Irish into Youngstown State. He quietly eclipsed the 3,000-yard passing mark for the second straight season, something only Brady Quinn has done previously in Notre Dame history.

I was mildly surprised not to see anything in the local write-ups. What makes it surprising is that Zeise did acknowledge how big it was in his blog notes.

Pitt made it through for the most part healthy except for two key injuries which likely changed the outcome of the game, or at least the final score. First Aaron Berry went down with a shoulder injury (and did not return) and then Ricky Gary went down with an undisclosed injury and as a result, Pitt had to finish the game with only one healthy experienced corner and the Irish clealry took advantage of it. Gary is OK but Wannstedt said he’s not sure what is going on with Berry’s shoulder and won’t know until today. Berry can miss the WVU game – the Mountaineers don’t pass that much anyway – but Pitt absolutely needs him to have a chance to beat Cincinnati.

No word on Gary’s injury but according to Coach Wannstedt, Berry is “day-to-day.”

“He’s day to day,” Wannstedt said. “This is a good week to have a bye for guys like Aaron. He was in here [Sunday] and did fine, though he is sore. It was not a season-ending injury or anything like that, so he’s just going to work through it.

“[Berry’s injury] provided a learning experience [for several young defensive backs who had to fill in] and they did fine against probably the best one-two combination of receivers in the country. And [safety] Jarred Holley has been a pleasant addition.”

Yes, Pitt learned that they need Berry to get healthy.