Illinois blindsided by rape charge against star guard Terrence Shannon Jr.

In late September, Illinois athletic director Josh Whitman received potentially ominous news about his men’s basketball program’s top returning player.

Police in Lawrence, Kansas, wanted to speak with Terrence Shannon Jr. about an incident that occurred when he visited to attend a Sept. 8 Illinois-Kansas football game.

At first, Whitman wasn’t certain how big a deal the request was. During a news conference in Champaign, Illinois, on Friday evening, Whitman recalled initially not knowing if Shannon was the subject of the inquiry or merely a witness to a crime.

Over the next several days, Whitman looked into the matter and discovered that it was Shannon who was under investigation. Whitman said he gleaned from conversations with the University of Illinois Police Department that the Lawrence police were looking into Shannon’s interactions with a young woman he met at a bar near the Kansas campus.

“The allegation,” Whitman said, “was that he engaged in some inappropriate touching of her.”

Illinois is likely to come under scrutiny in the coming days for its decision to keep playing and promoting Shannon despite knowledge of that allegation. Shannon blossomed into a first-team All-American candidate and the face of college basketball in the state of Illinois. He averaged 21.7 points per game for an Illinois team that has climbed to No. 11 in the AP Top 25.

Everything changed Wednesday when the Douglas County District Attorney blindsided Illinois by issuing a warrant for Shannon’s arrest on one count of rape, sexual intercourse without consent and use of force. Illinois responded the next day by indefinitely suspending Shannon from all team activities.

Attorney Mark P. Sutter issued a statement Thursday on behalf of Shannon declaring him “innocent of these charges” and vowing that he will take his case to trial. If convicted of rape, Shannon could face up to 54 years in prison.

Illinois, it appears, was caught off guard not only by Shannon’s arrest but also by the severity of the charges.

Whitman said he spoke to Shannon several times about the details of his weekend in Lawrence. While Whitman described Shannon as “forthcoming,” he said nothing that the fifth-year senior shared gave campus officials cause to consider disciplinary action.

Attempts by Illinois officials to extract more information out of the Lawrence authorities also proved unsuccessful. Whitman said he was unable to persuade the Lawrence police to provide meaningful updates, let alone to reveal if the investigation was ongoing or what charges were potentially on the table.

“Everything that we received was verbal, informal,” Whitman said at a news conference Friday. “It was light on details. It was unsubstantiated. It was unclear to us whether Lawrence authorities intended to pursue anything further or what additional information they were trying to obtain.”

The lack of documentation or formal allegations led Illinois administrators to decide that any sort of suspension or change in Shannon’s status was premature. Illinois paraded him in front of reporters at Big Ten Media Day, plastered his face on posters and program covers, and even created a day-in-the-life video for social media highlighting his work ethic.

“The determination for us was whether the information we had was of a level that allowed us to initiate our misconduct process,” Whitman said. “In consulting with a variety of campus officials, we didn’t feel like what we had at the time was enough.”

It wasn’t until the arrest warrant arrived Wednesday afternoon, according to Whitman, that any campus officials were aware of the rape charge Shannon now faces. As Whitman put it on Friday evening, “We certainly were not aware that it might be something so serious.”

Whitman pulled Illinois men’s basketball coach Brad Underwood off the practice floor a little while later to deliver the news. They then informed Shannon of his immediate suspension and of the need to travel to Lawrence to present himself to authorities.

The loss of Shannon is a massive blow to an Illinois team that improved to 10-2 on Friday night with a 104-71 shellacking of Fairleigh Dickinson. Opposing coaches were touting the Illini as a potential Final Four team as recently as a week ago, but they’ll miss Shannon’s 40% 3-point shooting and ability to finish in transition.

Until his legal case is resolved, Shannon’s only potential path to playing for Illinois again is a three-person university conduct panel selected by Chancellor Robert Jones. Within 48 hours of the suspension, the panel must review the information available to the university and subsequentally make a decision whether to uphold Shannon’s suspension, reduce it or get rid of it altogether.

Given the severity of the charge against Shannon, it’s difficult to envision the panel reinstating the fifth-year senior before the legal process plays out.

Was Illinois justified in playing him at all this season considering what campus officials knew about the allegations he faced? Whitman acknowledged the challenge of striking an appropriate balance between providing an athlete due process and sending the message that sexual misconduct “has no place on this campus or any other.”

“We’ve all enjoyed watching Terrence play this year,” Whitman said. “We’ve enjoyed seeing our team compete. But in moments like this we have to understand that basketball must take a backseat.“