Does Yale Basketball Have a Sexual Assault Scandal on its Hands?

Last month, Yale basketball captain Jack Montague abruptly left the team. His departure was shrouded in mystery, but a tipster told us to check with police about a possible sexual assault. We were able to turn up nothing earlier this week.

Montague last played for the Bulldogs on Feb. 6 against Cornell, scoring 16 points. He withdrew from the university on Feb. 10 and the athletic department announced he would not be returning to the team this season in a press release two weeks later. Administrators have declined to comment on Montague’s absence or the specifics surrounding it since the announcement.

The Yale basketball team – enjoying one of its best seasons in over a decade, and could make the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1962 – has cryptically been backing their former teammate, wearing t-shirts in honor of him at last Friday’s game with his nickname – Gucci – on the back, even though nobody knew why he was gone.

Today, a bombshell in the Yale Daily News:

"Two days after signs calling on the Yale men’s basketball team to “stop supporting a rapist” first appeared on campus, a new set of posters expressing a similar message appeared Wednesday morning in the Sheffield-Sterling-Strathcona lecture hall. All of this week’s posters referred to the recent controversy surrounding the basketball team’s show of support for former captain Jack Montague ’16, who was withdrawn from the University on Feb. 10 for reasons the team and University have not specified. By 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday, new posters were hung on two billboards just outside the lecture hall and placed on chairs inside the hall. A handwritten note chalked on the classroom’s blackboard read “Rape culture is standing by your teammate and silencing Yale’s victims of sexual assault.”"

The Yale Daily News reports Montague has retained a lawyer within the last week.

At some point, Yale is going to have to come forward and address this situation.