Cleaning house: Binghamton releases five more players

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. -- Binghamton released five more basketball players on Friday, a day after star player Emanuel "Tiki" Mayben was arraigned on cocaine distribution charges and kicked off the team.

Coach Kevin Broadus announced that D.J. Rivera, Malik Alvin, Corey Chandler, Paul Crosby and David Fine were released. Spokesman John Hartrick said in an e-mail no players, staff, or administrators would be made available for further comment.

Hartrick did not return calls seeking comment.

He told the Press & Sun-Bulletin in Binghamton that the five were released because "they are not toeing the line. Their attitude and behavior ... is not what we expect from our student-athletes."

In a statement announcing the releases, Broadus said, "If any of the young men in our program don't respect the decisions that have been made or the rules we have in place, then they need to move on with their lives."

On Thursday, Mayben was arraigned in Troy on felony drug charges and athletic director Joel Thirer later said Mayben had been permanently dismissed from the basketball program. A sealed indictment charged Mayben with selling cocaine twice on June 29 and police said they found 3.4 grams of cocaine on him when he was arrested.

Broadus signed a contract extension in June through the 2013-2014 season, on the heels of a season that featured the team's first-ever conference championship and NCAA tournament berth.

The Bearcats went 23-9 last season and won both the America East regular season and tournament titles. They were 13-3 in league play and won a school-record 11 straight games before losing to Duke in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

Rivera was second in the America East in scoring last season but was left off the All-America East team in the voting by the league coaches.

Mayben's arrest is the third legal problem for a player since Broadus took over the program in 2007.

Former player Miladin Kovacevic, who wasn't recruited by Broadus, left a classmate in a coma after a barroom brawl in May 2008. In November, Alvin, a transfer student brought in by Broadus, was charged with stealing condoms from a Wal-Mart.

Binghamton is part of the State University of New York system, which is led by chancellor Nancy Zimpher, who is known to take a hard line on problems within athletic programs. She was the president of the University of Cincinnati when men's basketball coach Bob Huggins was pressured to resign in 2005 after the program had a history of low graduation rates, suspensions and arrests of Huggins' players over the years. Huggins also had a drunk driving conviction in 2004.