Except "he didn't get caught", Zion is being sued by an agent, and in an effort to get a settlement, the agent's lawyers are trying to shame Zion into a settlement, throwing Coach K, Zion, and the Duke basketball program under the bus with outrageous claims; none of which are proven to be true
It's not semantics, it's what you want to believe because you hate Duke and want to jump to a conclusion
lol
It is semantics. He didn't "get caught" in the classic sense because there wasn't an investigation that led to the NCAA "catching" some kind of wrongdoing on his part.
However, assuming the accusation is true, he would still have been guilty of receiving impermissible benefits.
It's very similar to Reggie Bush and USC. Bush didn't "get caught" doing anything. A wannabe agent got worried that he wasn't going to get re-paid and ratted him out.
In either case, the only thing that matters is whether there were impermissible benefits received or not.
It's not like the NCAA will go easier on a program because they were "ratted out" instead of "caught".