HOUSTON — Jim Boeheim drew a distinction Thursday between what he considers cheating in college sports and the violations for which Syracuse was punished with a postseason ban last year.
“It’s something I regret,” Boeheim said. “I’m not happy about that. I don’t think we gained any competitive advantage at any time in this whole case that we’ve been through for 10 years. I think it weighed on us for 10 years and affected recruiting for 10 years. That’s just part of the punishment.
“But when they say ‘cheating,’ that’s not true. Rules being broken is a lot different. Cheating to me is intentionally doing something, like you wanted to get this recruit so you arranged a job for him, or you went to see him when you shouldn’t. You called him when you shouldn’t to gain an edge in recruiting to get a really good player. That’s cheating.”
The NCAA investigated Syracuse for nearly eight years, ruling last March that Boeheim failed to promote an atmosphere of compliance and monitor his staff. Included in the case were charges that a Syracuse director of basketball operations completed coursework for a player to keep him eligible, that the school ignored or violated its own drug testing program and that a booster provided more than $8,000 in extra benefits for two basketball and three football players tied volunteer work at the YMCA.
The Committee on Infractions report was harshly critical of Boeheim, and former committee chairman Britton Banowsky said there were “misplaced priorities” in the program.
“Things can happen in your program,” Boeheim said. “You have to take responsibility for them. You have to go on.”
Syracuse self-imposed a postseason ban after its hearing with the Committee on Infractions and was then slapped with additional sanctions including a nine-game suspension for Boeheim, a scholarship reduction, five years of probation and returning funds from three NCAA tournament appearances. Boeheim was also forced to vacate 108 victories.
Syracuse’s penalties might have been worse had the NCAA not agreed to rule under the more lenient penalty structure rather than the one adopted last year.
Syracuse bounced back to make a surprising run to this Final Four as a No. 10 seed.
“Losing the (victories) is the most irritating thing to me because there’s many situations and past cases where similar things, exact same things happen, and games were not taken away,” Boeheim said. “We presented all that stuff, but you know, nobody listened.
“You can always disagree with how an interpretation is made by a committee in this case that’s different from that case or from this case over here. That’s one of the problems. It’s an imperfect system. Someone who is on the committee came to me and said, ‘We have a horrible, horrible model here.’”
Though Boeheim would find broad agreement in critiquing the NCAA’s regulatory model, he would probably find less sympathy on the notion that Syracuse wasn’t gaining a competitive advantage when players who would otherwise have been ineligible competed for the Orange.
“I think if something happens that you’re not aware of, it doesn’t really affect the recruit, I don’t look at it the same way,” Boeheim said. “It’s a violation. I think when rules are violated, there should be a punishment.”
Boeheim also sparred with a reporter about his retirement date, which is contractually set for after the 2017-18 season. Boeheim, 71, said earlier this week on the Dan Patrick Show he would not retire if Syracuse won the title and his comments could have even been interpreted as a desire to perhaps coach beyond the contract.
Boeheim said Thursday he has “no plans” to go further than that but said it’s possible he could retire before 2018.
“I always thought you should walk away when you can’t win anymore,” he said. “I never really thought you should walk away when you do win.”
