Jim Boeheim said there was just one incident of academic fraud in the scope of the NCAA’s recently concluded investigation into Syracuse University’s basketball team, football program and athletic department.

It was Fab Melo — referred to as “student-athlete 7” in the NCAA report — receiving an improved grade on a paper from a year-old class that restored his eligibility in January of 2012. Then-director of basketball operations Stan Kissel and the basketball facility secretary violated SU’s academic integrity policy, according to the NCAA report.

On Thursday, Boeheim emphasized that the grade change process that Melo went through was legitimate and available to all students, and that there was no way he or anyone else could have known that citations were added to the paper by Kissel and the secretary. Boeheim said the discussion about Melo getting his grade changed began after he became ineligible and he had no doubt that Melo could complete the assignment on his own.

“The Committee on Infractions asked me, ‘Coach, why did you do this? Why did you let this happen? Why did you let him go get this grade change,’” Boeheim said. “I said ‘That’s my responsibility.’ It’s my responsibility to at least inform every guy ‘Well you have to get a grade change if you want to be eligible.”

In arguing against the NCAA reporting that he failed to promote a culture of compliance, Boeheim pointed out that he had daily meetings with academic coordinators. When asked why Melo only attempted to change his grade more than a year after he took the class, Boeheim reiterated that any student can petition for a grade change.

Melo missed games at Notre Dame, Cincinnati and at home against West Virginia on Jan. 21, 23 and 28, respectively.

SU declared Melo ineligible in January of 2012 before filing for an NCAA Academic and Membership Affairs waiver on Jan. 16 that would have made him eligible, according to the NCAA report. The waiver included a personal statement from Melo that said SU told the NCAA he got help in writing.

Four days later, according to the report, the waiver was denied and SU appealed. The appeal was denied on Jan. 24, and Daryl Gross called a Jan. 25 meeting that included Syracuse’s faculty athletics representative, associate provost, both deputy athletic directors, Kissel and the directors of compliance and student-athlete support services.

They decided to have Kissel talk to Melo about his options, according to the NCAA report. According to both the NCAA report and what Boeheim said on Thursday, Melo met with a professor to talk about the grade change. The NCAA report sets the date at Jan. 26 and reports that she received the paper the next day but it wasn’t accepted because it lacked citations.

“We hired somebody, and I don’t know if this is clear, but who was in charge of academics at a major university for men’s and women’s basketball, who absolutely knew, as would you or anyone, you cannot put citations in somebody’s paper,” Boeheim said, referring to Kissel.

On Thursday, Boeheim said he was checking with Melo, who was back at SU, from the road during Syracuse’s road swing against UND and Cincinnati.

Melo’s revised paper was accepted early in the week before the Orange played WVU, he said, but not processed through the College of Arts and Sciences in time for Melo to play against the Mountaineers.

“I would’ve liked to have him play, but they did not process it,” he said. “I called no one. I didn’t call a soul. That’s not my job. I do not interfere in the academics.”

Melo played in the Orange’s next game, against St. John’s on Feb. 4, but he and SU had committed an infraction because Kissel and the secretary revised the paper.

Boeheim said the paper — he referred to it as 10 pages, the NCAA report reads four to five — was about Melo’s life and that the NCAA questioned how he wrote it so quickly.

“The infractions committee asked me ‘How could he write that paper, in two days?’” Boeheim said. “I said ‘I think I could write that paper in four hours.’”

Boeheim had already joked that he wrote a 17-page, 32-quotation paper on the American Revolution when he was a student and that his academics should be looked into because he wrote it so quickly.

“I asked the Committee on Infractions, what more did you want me to do?” he said. “There was no answer. There’s no answer in the report of what I should do in that situation.”

Published on March 19, 2015 at 1:27 pm

Contact Jacob: jmklinge@syr.edu | @Jacob_Klinger_