Report reveals which victories NCAA made Syracuse vacate
Nineteen months after the NCAA ordered Syracuse to vacate 101 victories, we finally have a better sense of the extent of that punishment.
Wiped from the record books are wins from from five different seasons including one in which the Orange won the Big East regular season title and another in which they captured the Big East tournament championship. The Syracuse Post-Standard reported which seasons were impacted Monday.
The punishment stems from the NCAA’s 2015 findings regarding infractions Syracuse committed from 2004-2012. The NCAA ruled that members of Syracuse’s academic support staff did impermissible work for players, that a player broke the rules by accepting money for delivering a speech and that the university failed to follow its own drug policy with athletes who tested positive for use of marijuana.
Whereas Syracuse amassed a 34-3 record and captured the Big East title during the 2011-12 season, the Orange’s official record will be 0-3 that year. That suggests Syracuse had more than one ineligible player that season since center Fab Melo played in only 29 games.
Syracuse also loses credit for its memorable 2006 Big East tourney run highlighted by guard Gerry McNamara’s incredible four-game scoring barrage. Playing on a severely strained groin, McNamara willed the Orange into the NCAA Tournament that year, hitting a game-winning 3-pointer to beat Cincinnati at the buzzer in the opening round, forcing overtime with a late three against Connecticut the following day and then hitting big shots and dishing out key assists against Georgetown and DePaul in the semis and finals.
Three other Syracuse seasons are also affected by the punishment. Syracuse will vacate 15 wins from the 2004-05 season to drop its record to 12-7, 22 wins from the 2006-07 season to drop its record to 2-11 and seven wins from the 2010-11 season to drop its record to 20-8.
The 101 vacated wins will also be reflected in Jim Boeheim’s career win total, leaving him with 884 entering the new season instead of 985. Syracuse is under no obligation to reveal which players were ineligible, but it may soon be obvious since those players will have any records they set expunged from the school’s record book and media guide.
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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
