Columbia, Mo. ? Boone County Prosecutor Kevin Crane said he wasn’t “trying to be the NCAA police” when conducting depositions last March in preparation for prosecuting Missouri basketball player Ricky Clemons for domestic assault.

But Crane’s questions — and answers under oath from Missouri coach Quin Snyder and assistant Lane Odom — shed some light and raised questions about the school’s efforts to put Clemons in its lineup, efforts now being investigated by the NCAA.

Depositions aren’t usually public records unless they come up in trial, and there was no trial for Clemons because he pleaded guilty last April to two misdemeanors — third-degree domestic assault and false imprisonment — for a January incident involving former girlfriend Jessica Bunge.

In taking the depositions, Crane has said he aimed to establish a close relationship between Bunge and Clemons. His questions veered into how Clemons came to play for Missouri.

The athlete has since been kicked off the team, had his athletic scholarship revoked, completed a 60-day jail sentence and remains on two years of supervised probation. He re-enrolled at the university this week, although he isn’t playing basketball.

The depositions were declared a public record about one month ago by Boone County Circuit Judge Ellen Roper, who ruled in favor of a request for access initiated by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Along with the NCAA, Missouri is also investigating how Clemons qualified to enroll in Columbia.

The athlete, who didn’t graduate from high school, earned 24 academic credit hours — from five courses at a Kansas junior college and four more taken by correspondence — in less than two months. This after flunking some earlier courses at the College of Southern Idaho.

Asked by Crane how Clemons came to be enrolled at Barton County Community College in Great Bend, Snyder replied:

“I think it was a joint effort between Southern Idaho coaches, the Barton County coach, and you know, us obviously giving it our blessing that it would be a good place for him to go. Because at that point when he’s short of credits for graduation — we knew that.”

Snyder referred to Clemons’ graduation with an associates, or two-year, degree from the Kansas junior college.

Crane repeatedly observed that 24 credit hours seemed like a lot to achieve in one summer.

“I go back to when I was in college. You know. Gosh, there was some semesters I took 12 hours,” the prosecutor said.

Snyder replied by recalling his own academic efforts at Duke University, a highly regarded academic institution where he received a law degree and played basketball: “Yeah. I took 20 hours my last year in law school. And I needed it to graduate.”

In his deposition, Odom didn’t challenge Crane’s assertion that 24 credit hours seemed “inordinately high” for an “at-risk” student like Clemons to achieve during a summer semester lasting less than two months.