Hey, Remember When Fab Melo Got Benched In February?

Update: Fab Melo stories are coming out of the woodwork faster than I can keep up with. Jameson Fleming spoke with "two sources who are involved with the program’s daily operations" and heard what's becoming a very familiar story.

A brief timeline reminder..

February 10th & 11th - Fab Melo missed practice. According to reports at the time, he does not inform Coach Boeheim and the staff he will be missing practice. At the time, he says:

"I had some personal problems with my family...My head wasn’t for practice. So that’s why I didn’t practice.’’

February 12th - Syracuse plays Louisville, Fab Melo does not play.

February 14th - Syracuse plays West Virginia, Fab Melo does not play.

February 19th - Syracuse plays Rutgers, Fab Melo plays a wee bit.

From there on out, Melo re-integrates himself back into the line-up.

So, at the time, the explanation and the punishment seemed to work just fine. I don't remember reading too much into it. Well, given the current circumstances, perhaps we should have...

According to Ted Conroy at Orange Fizz, the reason Melo got benched had a little more to it...

 According to the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, an incident occured on Wednesday, February 9th.

"Fab pushed his [girlfriend] to the ground. She had to go to the hospital. She had several bruises… she claimed she fell down the stairs."

Following that, according to the source, Melo "turned off his phone and left. Coaches couldn’t get in contact with him. Two days later he said he was dealing with personal issues in Brazil."

That is a pretty strong accusation to throw down. I know Ted and trust him if he say his source is credible. So...if true...wow.

I don't know what Jim Boeheim's doing right now, but we're about to get to the point where he's gonna have to surface and respond to all of this. Sooner rather than later.

I think Pat sums it up best...