Jim Boeheim has come out with a pretty aggressive defense of his longtime assistant coach at Syracuse, Bernie Fine, following sexual abuse allegations by a former Orangemen ballboy:

“The Penn State thing came out and the kid behind this is trying to get money. He’s tried before. And now he’s trying again. If he gets this, he’s going to sue the university and Bernie. What do you think is going to happen at Penn State? You know how much money is going to be involved in civil suits? I’d say about $50 million. That’s what this is about. Money.”

Apparently, the police and The Syracuse Post-Standard investigated the situation in 2003 and came up empty, Boeheim said.

“The Post-Standard and the university talked to those other kids (in 2003). None of them corroborated the story, at all. I know some of those kids. They’ve told me, ‘Hey, Coach. Bernie helped me. He cared about me. He knew I needed help and he helped me.’

“You need to go to your people down there at the paper. They investigated this for four months. Do they remember that? And they found … what? They investigated this and found nothing. They talked to Bernie’s neighbors and friends … everybody. They found nothing. Your paper would whitewash nothing. Don’t you agree? They had nothing. They could not write a story. They found zero.”

Please do not compare this to the Penn State scandal. The police are still investigating the ballboy’s claims. [Post Standard]