So. A few days after Boston University announces it’s adding men’s lacrosse as a varsity sport …

… Max Nicastro, a junior on the BU hockey team, gets arrested on sexual assault charges and is suspended indefinitely. It’s the second such arrest this season of a BU hockey player. Nicastro joins Corey Trivino in that hall of shame.

And Nicastro’s arrest comes less than a week after the championship game of the Beanpot, when Terriers, Boston College, Northeastern and Harvard wore white ribbon stickers on their helmets, as part of a campaign against violence towards women.

Now, really, do you think Max Nicastro was listening? Or was aware? Or, when he allegedly committed the assault he’s charged with, was he just too drunk to make the “right” decision?

(If you’ve been paying attention to the George Huguely V case, this is pretty much the defense’s argument in favor of Huguely, a former Virginia men’s lacrosse player who is being tried in the death of Yeardley Love.)

Is Boston University’s hockey program sliding down the same slope that Virginia lacrosse and Penn State football tumbled down: harboring and enabling a culture of despicable behavior?

Is the collective behavior of Nicastro and Trivino, as well as a handful of suspensions and arrests over the past three seasons, indicative of  the culture – and what’s permissible, acceptable and/or overlooked – in a program?

Or will fans stick to the belief that winning, ultimately, will simply make up for all these problems?