Mr. Edelman clearly has no concept of Division 1 College Basketball. There are 351 schools in 32 Division 1 basketball conferences. Each of these schools plays the same number of games each year (28) prior to the post-season tournaments where the numbers can vary based on how well a team does. Of these schools, Syracuse plays significantly FEWER road games during the season because they hardly ever go on the road during November and December (when many other schools play MOST of their games on the road). Ironically, Syracuse gets criticized by sports reporters for playing a disproportionate number of their early season games at HOME.
Also, Mr. Edelman has no concept of how Syracuse (or several other schools) travels to away games. Due to NCAA regulations, a visiting team must arrive at an away game site the night BEFORE a game (in order to insure that weather does not preclude their being there on game day). They travel with academic support personnel and have mandatory study halls. And they always board a charter flight home immediately AFTER an away game which means they are virtually always home before midnight. They are then monitored to make sure they attend classes the next day.
In other words, they miss exactly one day of classes for an away game during midweek.
Because Syracuse uses charter flights, their players miss many fewer classes than others of the 351 schools that do not use charters.
I have no idea of why Mr. Edelman singled out Syracuse in his column. But he could not have been more off the mark. Syracuse players miss fewer classes than most other schools out there.