In the summer of 2012, Syracuse university learned that men's basketball player fab melo, who identified as a “student athlete” was having trouble academically and received improper assistance with achieving progress towards his degree. His academic issues resulted in receiving suspension and ending his reason before the NCAA tournament for spring semester. The committee then constructed an appropriate meeting hosted by athletic director Daryl Gross discussing how to get Melo back on the floor and decipher Melo's eligibility within institutional and NCAA requirements to reinstate melo. They concluded that Melo was allowed to re-submit a paper from a class taken two semesters prior to raise his grade for eligibility. In order to receive the grade change he would have to write a 4-5 page paper about what personal difficulties / problems he's had since enrolling at Syracuse university. His work was considered “inadequate” in january 27, 2012 by his professor, melo then submitted his assignment and received sufficient credit to raise his grade from a C+ to a B-. On January 30th, two days before melo was declared clear to play basketball again,a whistleblower raised questions. The Syracuse university college of arts and sciences then questioned the grade change. Both the NCAA and the university investigated the circumstances behind Melos regaining eligibility. They later found out that staffers on the men's basketball team completed Melo's assignment, found on file metadata with the help of director of basketball operations Stan Kissle and receptionist Debora Belanger. Kissle also had the passwords of players' email and posed as the athletes when dealing with professors. Without Melo they would then lose to Ohio State and would have failed to get to the elite eight. Later on in the years fab melo died on february 11th, 2017 in Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais, Brazil. He was pronounced dead and found by his mother the following morning. It was then discovered after that he had suffered from a heart attack.