Harvard basketball star Kyle Casey to drop out amid academic cheating scandal

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — Harvard basketball co-captain Kyle Casey plans to withdraw from school amid a cheating scandal that also may involve other athletes, according to several reports.

Sports Illustrated and the Harvard Crimson reported Tuesday that Casey, a senior, would take a leave of absence from school in an attempt to preserve a year of eligibility once the issue is resolved.

Co-captain Brandyn Curry also has been implicated in the scandal and is weighing his options, his father told the magazine. The Boston Herald reported Curry also is expected to withdraw from classes.

The school is looking into whether at least 125 undergraduates in what has been reported to be an Introduction to Congress class of about 280 students cheated by working together on a take-home final exam in the spring.

School officials have declined to release the students’ names.

“These allegations, if proven, represent totally unacceptable behavior that betrays the trust upon which intellectual inquiry at Harvard depends,” President Drew Faust said when the cheating scandal was uncovered in August.

Each student whose work is in question has been called to appear before a subcommittee of the Harvard College Administrative Board, which reviews issues of academic integrity. Possible punishments range from an admonition, a sort of warning for a first offense, to being forced to withdraw from Harvard for a year.

Harris emphasized that none of the allegations has been proven and said there’s no evidence of widespread cheating at Harvard.

The Crimson reported that other athletes, including football players are also among those implicated.

Harvard spokesman Tim Williamson declined to comment on Tuesday. Messages seeking comment also were left for Harvard basketball coach Tommy Amaker, football coach Tim Murphy, Curry and Casey.

Harvard is coming off Ivy League championships in both football and basketball, where the Crimson made their first trip to the NCAA tournament since 1946 last season, going 26-4 under Amaker.

Casey averaged more than 11 points per game, a team high and more than five rebounds. Curry averaged almost 8 points a game.

Amaker, a former Duke star, came to Harvard in 2007 from Michigan, where he was charged with cleaning up that program after years of scandal.

The Crimson, citing an email it obtained from John Ellison, the Secretary of the Administrative Board, said athletes involved were being asked to weigh potential Ivy League eligibility issues when deciding whether or not to remain on campus for the fall term.

Typically, if a player takes part in athletic competition before being asked to take a leave of absence by the board, the player loses a full season of Ivy League eligibility, the newspaper reported.

“Fall-term athletes may also want to consider taking (a leave) before their first game,” Ellison wrote in the email, according to the Crimson.