Mark Macon was cheered as he always is when he returns to Temple.
Excuse him if his mind was elsewhere.
The Owls' career leading scorer has never been forgotten at the school he put on the basketball map along with his coach, John Chaney. Macon wouldn't have been hurt this time had he missed Saturday's tribute to Temple's greats.
He wanted to coach his troubled Binghamton Bearcats in the America East conference tournament.
Macon finished his first season as interim coach at the program flattened by a slew of allegations that it lost its way academically, engaged in dubious enrollments, and that school officials failed to act when problems arose.
Macon thought the Bearcats had done their best to kick the scandal into their rearview mirror but then got the news that the university would withdraw from the conference tournament. Their season ended without a chance to defend their tournament title. Macon had no input into the decision - and refused to say if the university made the right call.
``I couldn't say and I wouldn't want to say,'' he said. ``We would have loved to have been there. I hurt for the kids more than anything because they really wanted to play. That's what you look at, just the hurt for the kids.''
Binghamton went from a nice story of small school-turned-NCAA tournament team to the mug shot of all that's wrong when programs place the pursuit of March Madness ahead of academics and recruiting character players.
The rap sheet never seems to end: Six players were kicked off the team after one was arrested on cocaine charges. Coach Kevin Broadus was suspended with pay from his $217,000 job after the university self-reported recruiting violations.
Athletics director Joel Thirer resigned after a female employee claimed she was sexually harassed and filed a lawsuit against two athletics officials and two boosters.
In addition, there were allegations that an athletics employee had pressured an adjunct lecturer into giving preferential treatment to an athlete.
Macon spent two seasons as an assistant before taking over for Broadus, and says he wasn't aware of any trouble stirring at the school 140 miles northwest of New York City.
``There was actually nothing happening,'' Macon said. ``All those things are just assumptions.''
A four-month outside investigation into the Binghamton University athletic department said otherwise, finding that academic integrity was sacrificed after the school moved in 2001 from Division III to the world of big-time college athletics.
``I haven't the read the reports, I don't know anything about the reports, so I can't comment on those things,'' Macon said. ``I just wasn't privy to anything like that.''
Macon said he couldn't sleep for three days after he accepted the interim coaching job at a troubled program fresh off its first NCAA tournament appearance.
``It was like somebody put this building on top of my head,'' Macon said.
The Bearcats' Web site still lists highlights of a record-breaking 2008-09 season, including: compiling a school-record 23-8 season and going 13-3 in league play; advancing to the NCAA tournament and outshooting Duke in a first-round game; winning a school record 11 consecutive games.
All of those milestones meant little after the program imploded.
The Bearcats were picked to finish last in the America East, but Macon led them to a respectable fifth-place finish at 8-8 in the conference and 13-18 overall.
``We had a stellar season,'' Macon said. ``We had six walk-ons, we had three freshman, we had one kid who just came from junior college.''
Chaney, the Hall of Fame coach who led the Owls to five NCAA regional finals, said Macon deserves credit for salvaging a season of scandal.
``What he did was the best job in college basketball,'' Chaney said. ``He had nothing. For him to rise like the phoenix out of the ashes was unbelievable. ... They should be frightened to death to get rid of someone who's done such a great job.''
Macon hasn't been told anything about his future and is still operating as the interim coach. He's set to recruit and could use a staff, though. He lost assistant coaches in the mess and was down to one at season's end.
Broadus' status is up in the air. A longtime assistant, he was hired in 2007 from the Georgetown staff and signed a contract extension last June through the 2013-14 season.
Macon has kept in touch with Broadus and believes he wants to return. Macon said he's willing to return to an assistant coaching job under Broadus.
``I love coach Broadus. I was hoping he'd come back earlier during the season so we could get things rolling earlier the way it's supposed to,'' Macon said. ``It just didn't happen. I want him back. I love him.''
Macon wants to stay in Binghamton and build the program the right way. He said the fans and community have backed the program and he was proud of the way his team tuned out the distractions to rally to a successful season.
With a smile, Macon says he believes there was one final epilogue left to the season.
``We'd rather be in the tournament, but things were done,'' he said.
And could they have won the whole thing?
``Yes,'' he said.
The Bearcats will never know.
