Former Binghamton head coach Kevin Broadus joins Georgetown's staff

Kevin Broadus is back.

The former Binghamton head coach and Washington DC native has been hired as a special assistant to Georgetown head coach John Thompson III. Not assistant coach, mind you. Assistant. As in aide. As in he cannot recruit off-campus, he cannot coach the team, he cannot participate in meeting involving coaching activities, and he cannot scout opponents.

Why is Georgetown being forced to bring in a head coach that made the 2009 NCAA Tournament as the nation's highest-paid intern?


Because his flameout at Binghamton was even more impressive than the team that he was able to field.

Long story short, Broadus quickly earned a reputation for recruiting kids with questionable behavioral and academic backgrounds.

Short story long, he led Binghamton to the America East's tournament title in 2009, but his best player -- DJ Rivera -- was blackballed from first team all-conference by coaches who did not support Broadus' recruiting methods and the high-risk transfers he brought in. No worries, though, as Rivera was one of six players to get kicked off of the Binghamton team that following September after a series of unfortunate events. There was Tiki Mayben's arrest for selling crack. There was Malik Alvin getting arrested after knocking over a 66 year old woman and giving her a concussion while trying to steal a pack of Magnum condoms. There were accusations of academic impropriety. And, worst of all, a former member of the team named Milidan Kovacevic punched a student so hard that he inflicted life-threatening head injuries and damaged his brain so severely that the student lost all of his memory from college, including the classes he had taken. Oh, and Kovacevic immediately fled the country back to his native Serbia.

If that wasn't enough, Broadus committed a recruiting violation just weeks after this scandal hit. The details are here, but essentially he went to Notre Dame Prep in Massachusetts and had illegal contact with a recruit. That, eventually, cost him his job, but not without taking a fifth of Binghamton's athletic budget with him.

"I think that Kevin, like everyone else, has learned from things that have happened in the past," John Thompson III said. "During his time here at Georgetown, he was invaluable to me as a sounding board, and I anticipate that being the case again. ... I did not go into this naive, thinking there wouldn’t be some negative thoughts out there, negative feelings toward him. And with reason. . . . But at the end of the day, Kevin knows how we do things at Georgetown and how we don’t do things at Georgetown."

Personally, I think this is a good move for all involved.

Georgetown doesn't take on much risk that Broadus will commit another violation given that his duties will be limited. (Seriously, does he make sure JT III's coffee stays warm? What will he do at Georgetown?) College coaches are stubborn and set in their ways, but I seriously doubt that Broadus would risk JT III's career by breaking the rules while he is on the Hoya's staff.

For Broadus, this is a no-brainer. Its a chance for him to get back into basketball and to start rebuilding his reputation. Everyone makes mistakes, and like the questionable characters Broadus brought into Binghamton, everyone deserves a second chance, an opportunity to right their wrongs.

Let's just hope that Broadus learned from his mistakes, unlike the players that got the boot from Binghamton.
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Binghamton coach Kevin Broadus placed on leave

Who saw this coming?

Kevin Broadus has been placed on a paid leave of absence by Binghamton University.

Without getting into the details (did he have to?), interim athletic director said that the punishment was being handed down as a result of "continuing incidents of concern" that fail to meet the "university’s high standards."

Assistant Mack Macon will serve as the interim head coach.

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Kevin Broadus commits violation, gets suspended from off-campus recruiting

Things have gone from bad to worse to an utter and complete disaster at Binghamton.

Two weeks ago, Emanuel "Tiki" Mayben was kicked off the team after being arrested for selling crack. That prompted the school to toss five more players, including DJ Rivera, the best player in the America East, off the team as well. The University then began to clean house, first firing a professor that had worked there for 11 years, and then losing AD Joel Thirer, who resigned from his post. All of this turmoil has led to an independent investigation into the Binghamton athletics program, which is headed up by retired NYC Chief Judge Judith Kaye.

It wasn't all that long ago that Kevin Broadus cut down the nets during a Final Four run as an assistant at Georgetown.
(photo credit: daylife)

You would think that given all the hoopla surrounding his program, Broadus would want to do all he could to avoid anymore negative publicity. He already barely avoided an NCAA violation after canceling campus wide tryouts for the team last week.

But Broadus wasn't done.

You see, the contact period, the 27 days during the fall where coaches are allowed face-to-face contact with recruits, ended on Monday, October 5th. Tuesday the 6th marked the first day of the evaluation period, where coaches are allowed to watch and, well, evaluate the kids they are recruiting. But in-person contact with those recruits is not allowed until after the evaluation period ends March 31st.

NCAA rules apparently don't bother Broadus. On Tuesday, while watching two recruits - Marcus Glenn and Antoine Myers - at Notre Dame Prep in Massachusetts, Broadus was seen with an assistant walking the two players up a hallway. The recruits were seen returning to the gym with business cards. The two recruits later confirmed that Broadus had spoken to them, blatantly violating NCAA rules.

On Friday, the school self-reported a secondary violation to the NCAA and on Saturday they banned Broadus and his assistants from recruiting off-campus.

Yup, things are really bad up in Binghamton. The Bearcats have just seven scholarship players on the roster, their leading returning scorer averaged under 5 ppg last season, and they cannot recruit off-campus because their head coach was just busted for an NCAA violation while the school's athletics program is under an external investigation.

Former Boston University head coach Dennis Wolff went as far as to say that "It's conceivable (Binghamton) could not win a game" to the Albany Times-Union.

The question now becomes how long will Kevin Broadus be allowed to keep his job, because he sure isn't acting like he wants it.

The answer is trickier than you think because Broadus signed a contract extension this summer. He is owed over $1 million for the next five seasons, which is a lot of money for a school with a $10.4 million athletics budget.
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