LAWRENCE, Kansas — Douglas County prosecutors rested their case Wednesday in the rape trial of Terrence Shannon Jr. as jurors heard testimony from his accuser’s best friend and others who were present at the crowded bar near the University of Kansas campus the night of the alleged sexual assault.

Shannon, a Chicago native and University of Illinois men’s basketball standout, faces one count of rape or an alternative count of aggravated sexual battery, also a felony. He stands accused of putting his hand under an 18-year-old woman’s skirt, grabbing her buttocks and penetrating her vagina with his finger while in an area of the Jayhawk Cafe called the Martini Room.

Shannon has denied the allegations, which stem from a September trip he and two others took to Lawrence to watch an Illini-Jayhawks football game. His NBA hopes — some prognosticators believe he could be a first-round pick in this month’s draft — likely hinge on the outcome of a trial that is scheduled to conclude two weeks before the NBA draft.

Day three of the trial also included testimony from two forensic scientists, one from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, the other privately hired by the defense, whose analysis and interpretation of DNA in the case reached somewhat different conclusions.

Both agreed that no male DNA was detected in swabs taken from the 18-year-old’s vagina and genital area.

The KBI forensic scientist wrote in her report that swabs from the interior and exterior crotch of the woman’s underwear revealed an “insufficient amount of male DNA” to move forward with testing, though she told jurors Wednesday that those levels were essentially too low to say conclusively whether they were even DNA.

But the defense’s forensic scientist called the report’s reference to male DNA “a very misleading statement.”

Using a different measurement threshold than the KBI, the defense’s scientist also concluded “with scientific certainty” that Shannon’s DNA was not in a sample collected from the 18-year-old’s buttocks.

The day began with testimony from the accuser’s 19-year-old best friend and roommate, who gave jurors a now-familiar account of the night, starting with their attendance at the KU-Illini football game, followed by a bite to eat at their apartment, stops at the Jayhawk Cafe (known locally as The Hawk) and a second bar in downtown Lawrence and, then, a return visit to The Hawk.

She told jurors she was next to the 18-year-old as they tried to weave through the packed Martini Room toward the exit, and that she was the one who encouraged her to go back inside after the 18-year-old told her about a cute guy who waved her over to him.

“I figured it would make her night more fun,” she told jurors.

The friend testified she did not see the alleged assault take place and only realized later that night that her roommate’s urgent request to leave was not because of the crowd.

The friend also told jurors that she saw Shannon grab the 18-year-old’s hand or wrist and pull her toward him. But on questioning from Shannon’s attorney, Tricia Bath, she acknowledged she did not share that detail in previous interviews with police or prosecutors.

Later in the trial, Bath called a computer forensics expert to the stand who, acting on a defense subpoena, extracted data from the accuser’s friend’s phone. That data, he testified, showed that the two women returned to the Martini Room about 24 hours after the alleged sexual assault.

Phone records also showed a December group message thread involving the two women and their two other roommates, including the best friend’s sister. The exchange included a link to an ESPN article on Shannon’s suspension from the Illini men’s team following the rape charge, and a message from the friend’s sister that read “got his ass,” followed by two face emojis with dollar signs for eyes and cash for tongues.

The testimony did not mention any response from the 18-year-old to that message.

KU men’s basketball players Hunter Dickinson and Kevin McCullar Jr. also testified on the defense’s behalf, as did Illini guard Justin Harmon and the team’s graduate assistant, DyShawn Hobson. All four were with Shannon at the Martini Room that night; all four said they never saw him grab any woman at the bar.

Shannon’s academic adviser at Illinois, Reba Daniels, also took the stand. She said she also taught courses Shannon took and worked with him during an internship with the university.

“I was completely shocked,” she said when asked about her reaction to the allegations against Shannon, whom she described as kind, trustworthy, hardworking, and a “gentle giant.”

“It’s just not the person I know,” she told jurors. “Even to this day, I’m shocked I’m sitting here.”

Closing arguments are expected to take place Thursday.

LAWRENCE, Kansas — It was an emotional second day in Terrence Shannon Jr.’s rape trial as his accuser took the witness stand and described for a Douglas County jury the night she said the Chicago native and University of Illinois men’s basketball standout penetrated her vagina with his finger while at a crowded bar near the University of Kansas campus.

“I was terrified,” the woman, now 19, told jurors Tuesday, tears welling in her eyes. “I was scared and I was shocked.”

Shannon faces one count of rape or an alternative count of aggravated sexual battery, also a felony. He has denied the allegations, which stem from a September trip he and two others took to Lawrence to watch an Illini-Jayhawks football game. His NBA hopes — some prognosticators believe he could be a first-round pick in this month’s draft — likely hinge on the outcome of a trial that is scheduled to conclude two weeks before the NBA draft.

The woman’s testimony took up much of the morning’s court proceedings. The afternoon was largely focused on testimony from the Lawrence police detective who led the investigation into her allegations, and included black-and-white surveillance footage that appeared to show Shannon and the woman moments before — but not during — their alleged encounter inside the Jayhawk Cafe’s Martini Room.

Shannon’s criminal defense attorneys argued the police investigation had been sloppy in failing to interview possible witnesses and an alternative suspect who had been accused of a similar crime, two weeks earlier, in the same spot in the Martini Room where Shannon’s accuser said she was assaulted.

Members of Shannon’s family, a few friends and his agent sat in the courtroom gallery as the woman recounted an encounter she said started around 12:15 a.m. when she and her friend and roommate returned to the Jayhawk Cafe, known locally as The Hawk.

In the Martini Room, one of two bar areas in The Hawk’s basement, the woman, then 18, said she had three sips of vodka and Red Bull, which she testified was her first drink of the night.

“I thought it would be a good time,” she responded when asked why she went to the bar despite saying she didn’t particularly like crowds or drinking.

The room was hot and crowded and loud, she told jurors, and she wanted to leave. As she and her friend maneuvered through the masses, she said she saw a man wave her over to him. He was tall, she said, had different colored dreadlocks and wore a mustard-yellow shirt.

She thought he was cute, she told jurors, and with her friend’s encouragement, she went back in the room.

That’s when she said the man grabbed her and pulled her to him. She said she thought they would talk and exchange phone numbers or Snapchats. Instead, she said no words were exchanged. With a drink in one hand and a phone in the other, both arms pressed near her chest, she said she looked straight ahead as she felt the man’s hand move under her skirt to her butt.

“I was definitely uncomfortable,” she told jurors. “I don’t know why I didn’t (walk away). But I wish I did.”

Next, she said, she felt his hand move her underwear to the side and a finger inside her for what she estimated to be no more than 10 seconds.

“I didn’t react,” she said. “All I did was stand there in shock.”

When his hand left, she said, she pushed through the crowd to leave and to look for her friend. The two eventually left the bar. By then, she said, she was too hysterical to drive.

Back at her apartment, she started to search for the man’s identity. She remembered that the man had been standing by a KU basketball player at the bar. She eventually identified Shannon, she said, after searching online for photos from rosters for football and basketball teams at KU and Illinois.

She did not immediately call police, she said, fighting back tears, “because I didn’t want to end up here.”

One of Shannon’s criminal defense attorneys, Tricia Bath, spent part of her cross-examination questioning the woman about possible inconsistencies in her statements. For example, the woman told the jury Tuesday that she believed Shannon first grabbed her arm or wrist to pull her to him that night. But, Bath noted, the woman testified in a May preliminary hearing that he did not grab her arm or wrist. She also did not remember telling a nurse that he groped her vaginal area, despite telling jurors that such a groping did not take place.

Later in the proceeding, Detective Josh Leitner of the Lawrence Police Department took the stand. A nearly 17-year veteran police officer, Leitner led the department’s investigation of the Shannon case.

Jurors watched a clip of video surveillance from one of the cameras inside the Martini Room. At least one other camera in the bar was inoperable. The black-and-white footage did not have audio. It showed two people, identified by Leitner as the woman and her friend, as they slowly made their way through the throngs of people and toward an exit door near where she said the alleged assault took place.

A man Leitner identified as Shannon was seen on the video entering the room from that open door. He headed out of view on the right side of the image frame, and the woman eventually vanished from view in that same area.

The footage did not show the two together. It did capture portions of another person whom Shannon’s attorneys previously identified in court filings as a “third-party defendant.” The Chicago Tribune is not naming him because he has not been charged in connection with the woman’s alleged rape.

Two weeks before the alleged encounter between Shannon and the woman, that third-party defendant was accused by a different woman — also 18 — of touching her vagina outside her pants, without her consent, in the same area of the Martini Room. He was not charged in connection with that accusation.

Leitner said he had no reason to suspect that third-party defendant, given the woman’s certainty that Shannon had been the person who grabbed her that night.

But one of Shannon’s attorneys, Oakbrook Terrace-based Mark Sutter, grilled the detective about his decision not to question that person despite the past allegations against him.

Sutter also pressed the detective to explain why he sought a probable-cause affidavit against Shannon before DNA testing had finished and before he interviewed other possible witnesses: other KU men’s basketball players in the bar that night, Shannon’s teammate and the graduate assistant who drove with Shannon from Champaign to Lawrence for the football game.

The detective’s investigation, Sutter said during questioning, seemed to exclude any possible evidence that wasn’t “falling in your lap.”

The trial will continue Wednesday.

“When I got hurt a couple years ago, we had a male physical therapist, and he was really lax about it,” Comas said. “He just told me I’m ‘good to go.’ Having an environment for women would’ve been a lot more comfortable and better for healing the injury long term.”

Dr. Mary Mulcahey, director of sports medicine and an orthopedic surgeon at Loyola Medicine, said stories like Faith’s were what inspired her to help launch a new program to provide health care for female athletes. Loyola’s new Women’s Sports Medicine program aims to educate women on the risks of sports injuries while offering gender-specific care, she said.

“The main impetus or idea behind this is that there are certain injuries that are more common or unique to female athletes, so the program really focuses on having a group that has expertise in treating these conditions and is aware of some of the nuances and differences with treating female athletes,” Mulcahey said.

Mulcahey said that the program will utilize a network of physicians including primary care, sports medicine, orthopedic medicine, endocrinology, urogynecology, sports, cardiology, and obstetrics and gynecology, along with physical therapists and athletic trainers.

The program will allow female athletes to more easily access different kinds of doctors at once, she said. There can be a number of factors that play into an individual injury, according to Mulcahey, and offering a network that can easily connect athletes with several types of doctors eliminates tedious middle steps.

“If I were to see a patient who had a stress factor, for example, I would inquire about their menstrual cycle and their eating habits,” Mulcahey said. “This is a good example of where the interdisciplinary approach really works. If they’re having irregular menses, I could refer them to an OB-GYN colleague. I’d ask about their eating habits, and maybe refer them to a nutritionist or dietician or maybe even a counselor in the program.”

While Mulcahey said it has historically been possible to refer patients to other doctors, the Women’s Sports Medicine program introduces a streamlined approach for female athletes.

The doctors included in the program also all have a particular focus on female patients, she added. Having that specialized knowledge can help in approaching an injury as simple as an ACL tear.

“ACL tears are upwards of eight times more common in female athletes,” Mulcahey said. “In the knee, the ACL is smaller, the overall alignment of the lower extremity of the legs is different in female athletes, hormonal variations and fluctuation throughout the menstrual cycle have a huge impact on the risk of ACL tears. You need doctors that understand that.”

In February, Comas tore her ACL while wrestling and came to Mulcahey for surgery. She said that receiving a treatment specialized for women’s bodies made her feel a lot safer, especially as a wrestler.

Because of a lack of women in her sport, Comas said, she’s often had to wrestle men or women who were in a completely different weight class, presenting a higher risk of injury. Having a doctor who understood how women are built differently from men and could address her symptoms with that in mind made a big difference, she said.

“My freshman year I got injured, and my coach was just asking ‘When can she wrestle? Can she do this?’ Comas said. “I think with this injury things have been explained better and people have been a lot more patient. I can actually focus on healing the injury.”

Giavanna Green, a 17-year-old cheerleader who tore her meniscus and ACL in October, had surgery in May after months of confusion about her injury. Mulcahey also performed Green’s surgery, and Green said she felt supported and encouraged by the network of doctors at Loyola.

Green said that Mulcahey stressed stretching and taking care of her leg, doing proactive exercises to prevent hurting or re-tearing the ligaments. Green said she appreciated that education since things like stretching and taking care of the body can be glossed over in sports, she said

“A lot of people push themselves so hard,” Green said. “If someone came in and taught us to understand how not to overwork ourselves and cause these injuries, I feel like it would be really beneficial.”

Mulcahey said that she plans to do just that in Loyola’s new program. The program aims to partner with local teams, clubs and sports organizations to provide teach-ins and resources on injury prevention for female athletes like Comas and Green.

Getting to women before they are injured is imperative, Mulcahey said.

“We want to connect with and be available for various women’s sports teams,” she said. “We also are looking at giving talks at some of our local high schools where there are many active women and girls, where we could share information about injuries and injury prevention. We’re trying to bring that education into the community.”

Overall, Mulcahey said, the program aims to dig deeper into female injuries, separating outcomes in male and female athletes and learning more about what injuries are more common in or completely unique to female athletes.

“In having a women’s sports medicine program, there is an opportunity to do research to really investigate these injuries in female athletes,” Mulcahey said “Are there differences? Are there things we need to be keeping in mind? Should we be modifying our approach to care for our female athletes? The Women’s Sports Medicine program is an opportunity to do that.”

LAWRENCE, Kansas — Jurors were selected Monday in Douglas County to decide whether Chicago native and University of Illinois men’s basketball standout Terrence Shannon Jr. is guilty of grabbing an 18-year-old woman’s buttocks under her skirt and penetrating her vagina with his finger in September at a bar near the University of Kansas campus.

The 12 jurors and three alternates — eight men and seven women — were chosen after a lengthy jury selection process Monday in Judge Amy Hanley’s courtroom.

Shannon faces one count of rape or an alternative count of aggravated sexual battery, also a felony. He has denied the allegations, which stem from a trip he and two others took to Lawrence to watch an Illini-Jayhawks football game.

Shannon’s NBA hopes — some prognosticators believe he could be a first-round pick in this month’s draft — now hinge on a jury whittled down over the course of seven hours from a potential pool that exceeded 70 at the start of the day.

Dressed in a dark blue suit, brown shoes and a white shirt buttoned at the collar, sans tie, Shannon sat quietly during the first day of his scheduled four-day trial, occasionally leaning to his right to confer with two of his three attorneys: Tricia Bath, based in Leawood, Kansas, and Mark Sutter, whose office is in Oakbrook Terrace.

His attorneys have appeared eager to conclude the trial before the NBA draft begins June 26.

The trial continues Tuesday with opening statements.

Monday’s proceedings got off to a rocky start as one potential juror fainted from her chair. Other potential jurors and court deputies rushed to her aid, helping escort her to her feet and to the hallway, where she was seen by paramedics.

Prosecutor Ricardo Leal and Bath took turns posing questions of potential jurors, most centered on their understanding of the criminal justice system — did they understand, for example, that the state has the burden to prove Shannon’s guilt — and whether they felt they could make impartial decisions based on evidence and testimony alone.

Three were excused after an hour of questioning, apparently due to their stated negative views about police. Two potential jurors were later excused because of the nature of the alleged crime in the case; one said he had been a victim of a sexual assault, the other said she did not feel she could be fair and impartial.

Two more were excused after disclosing that someone close to them had been accused of a serious crime.

More than a dozen said they had heard about a Douglas County case involving an Illini basketball player, but none said they knew Shannon when, at Bath’s request, he stood to face the potential jury pool.

Shannon’s accuser testified during a May preliminary hearing that she had been in the “Martini Room” at the Jayhawk Cafe in the early hours of Sept. 9, when she saw a man she later identified as Shannon wave her over to him.

“I kind of made eye contact with him and he reached out his arm to grab me to pull him over toward him,” she testified. “So he kind of — I don’t remember where he grabbed me, but he grabbed me, and then as I got closer, he started grabbing on my hip area and my butt area.”

The entire encounter lasted maybe 30 seconds, she said. And at first, she said, she didn’t have a problem with him touching her over her clothes.

But his right hand slid under her skirt, she said, and grabbed her butt. Next, she said, she felt his hand move her underwear to the side and a finger inside her for what she estimated to be no more than 10 seconds.

Then, she said, he “just stopped.”

The two never spoke to each other. She said she froze, a drink in one hand and a phone in the other, both arms pressed near her chest.

“I was terrified,” she said during the May 10 preliminary hearing in Douglas County, according to a transcript.

She told authorities she identified Shannon after searching online for photos of rosters for football and basketball teams at KU and Illinois.

Shannon testified at the same May hearing and denied knowing his accuser or having any physical contact with her. His attorneys previously filed separate court motions questioning the strength of the state’s DNA evidence and suggesting authorities have failed to pursue another suspect.

That person is identified in attorney filings as a “third-party defendant.” The Chicago Tribune is not naming him as he’s not been charged in connection with the 18-year-old woman’s alleged rape.

Shannon’s attorneys previously said they have witnesses and video from the Martini Room that put the third-party defendant in the spot where the 18-year-old said Shannon was standing when she encountered him.

Police have not questioned this third-party defendant while investigating the reported rape, Shannon’s attorneys previously said.

Additionally, Shannon’s attorneys said the third-party defendant was accused by a different woman — also 18 — of touching her vagina outside her pants, without her consent, two weeks before the alleged Shannon incident, in the same location where Shannon’s accuser said she was assaulted. He was not charged in connection with that accusation.

Shannon’s legal team already scored a federal court victory earlier this year, persuading a judge to overturn his university suspension on the grounds that his extended absence from basketball (he’d missed six games at that point) violated his due process rights and potentially jeopardized millions of dollars from his NIL (name, image, likeness) contract and future earnings in the NBA.

A first-team All-Big Ten selection this season and last, the fifth-year guard guided the Illini to a Big Ten Tournament championship — being named Most Outstanding Player in the process — and a trip to the NCAA Tournament’s Elite Eight, where they were trounced by eventual champion Connecticut 77-52.

After entertaining a strong pursuit from the Los Angeles Lakers to become their next head coach, Hurley declined a reported six-year, $70 million contract offer and will return to UConn, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski first announced Monday.

“I am humbled by this entire experience. At the end of the day, I am extremely proud of the championship culture we have built at Connecticut,” Hurley said in a statement. “We met as a team before today’s workout and our focus right now is on getting better this summer and connecting as a team as we continue to pursue championships.”

UConn practiced from 2-4 p.m. on Monday, beginning shortly after the news was made public, and then Hurley and his staff left for a recruiting trip to the NBPA Top 100 Camp in Orlando.

Hurley, 51, has now turned down reported big money from one of the NBA’s most storied franchises and one of college basketball’s top programs, Kentucky, in the same offseason as he looks to contend for a third consecutive national championship with the Huskies.

BREAKING: Connecticut’s Dan Hurley has turned down the Los Angeles Lakers’ six-year, $70 million offer and will return to chase a third straight national title, sources tell ESPN. LA would’ve made him one of NBA’s six highest paid coaches. pic.twitter.com/hEXo3o00SR

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 10, 2024

“We are thrilled that Dan Hurley has made the decision to stay at UConn and continue building upon our championship tradition. He has helped return our men’s basketball program back to the pinnacle of the sport, including back-to-back NCAA Championships, and we’re grateful for his loyalty to UConn,” Athletic Director David Benedict said in a statement. “We look forward to Dan’s continued leadership on and off the court at UConn. He will continue to bring great pride to Husky fans everywhere as we work toward a three-peat.”

The declined offer would’ve made Hurley one of the NBA’s six highest-paid head coaches.

“As swept away as Hurley became by the Lakers’ courtship and vision for him, he ultimately couldn’t walk away from a chance to make history and pursue a third straight NCAA title. Even before Lakers talks, Hurley already had a UConn offer to become one of highest paid NCAA coaches and those talks will continue, per sources,” Wojnarowski posted to X.

The Lakers, hiring to replace Darvin Ham, reportedly had Hurley “at the forefront” of their head coaching search from the beginning of the process and were preparing a “massive, long-term” contract offer for the back-to-back NCAA champion, Wojnarowski first reported Thursday morning.

Dom Amore: It was business, but in the end Dan Hurley couldn’t tear himself from UConn

Hurley met with Lakers’ VP and GM Rob Pelinka and owner Jeanie Buss in Los Angeles on Friday and flew home Saturday morning. He took in a Billy Joel concert at Madison Square Garden with his wife, Andrea, and assistant coach Luke Murray Saturday night and spent Sunday weighing the decision. UConn had the weekend off from summer practice.

The Lakers’ brass made a “compelling case” and presented a “compelling vision” for him to become their next head coach, according to Wojnarowski, and Hurley left Los Angeles “extremely impressed,” but still thinking about what he has built in Storrs over the last six years.

“Our MVP Coach is staying in CT. Now let’s get ready for a (three-peat), because Connecticut knows champions are built here!” Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont posted to X.

Hurley signed a six-year, $32.1 million contract extension after winning the 2023 national championship, which made him the state’s highest-paid employee. After winning again in April, and being named the 2024 Naismith and Big East Coach of the Year, he is expected to finalize a new extension that will put him among the highest-paid coaches in college.

“Look, he’s the very best in the business. Everybody knows that and we’ll make sure that he’s the top paid college coach,” Lamont told reporters in Fairfield on Monday, before Hurley’s return was made public. “I think it’s not about money for him. He’s always wanted to do something in the pros. Going for the three-peat at UConn is pretty good too.”

Hurley’s teams are 292-163 over his 14 seasons coaching in college at Wagner, then Rhode Island and UConn.

UConn is 141-58 (.709) and has made four consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances under Hurley. The Huskies went 68-11 over the last two years without losing an NCAA Tournament game, winning a record 12-straight by 13 points or more.

Hurley returns to the roster he built to make history, to contend for a third NCAA championship in a row – something that hasn’t been done in more than 50 years.

At her friend’s encouragement, she said, she ventured back in his direction, slowly weaving through the hot and sweaty crowd, its numbers swelled that September night by a KU football victory hours earlier at home against the University of Illinois.

What happened in the seconds that followed is soon to be a question for a jury to answer when the rape trial of Illinois men’s basketball standout and Chicago native Terrence Shannon Jr. begins Monday in a Douglas County, Kansas, courtroom.

Terrence Shannon Jr. rape trial begins with selection of jury to decide fate of Illinois basketball star

Shannon, 23, faces one count of rape or an alternative count of aggravated sexual battery, also a felony, in a case that stems from a trip he and two others took to watch that September Illini-KU football game.

Lawrence police said in an affidavit that the 18-year-old told a detective that Shannon put his hand under her skirt, grabbed her buttocks and penetrated her vagina with his finger while at the bar.

“I was terrified,” she said during a May 10 preliminary hearing in Douglas County, according to a transcript.

Shannon has denied the allegations. His criminal defense attorneys declined comment for this story and filed separate court motions questioning the strength of the state’s DNA evidence and suggesting authorities have failed to pursue another suspect.

The closely watched trial could prove to be another stress test of a criminal justice system that’s been seen nationally as being too lenient toward high-profile athletes accused of sex crimes, and of a district attorney’s office that’s faced past criticism over its handling of sexual assault cases under a previous administration.

The current DA, Suzanne Valdez, a former KU law professor who once chided her university’s handling of sexual assault complaints, was recently the target of a disciplinary hearing in which a panel of attorneys recommended she be publicly censured over statements made toward Douglas County District Court Chief Judge James McCabria, the Lawrence Times reported.

A spokesperson for Valdez’s office previously declined to comment on the Shannon case.

Shannon’s legal team already scored a federal court victory earlier this year, persuading a judge to overturn his university suspension on the grounds that his extended absence from basketball (he’d missed six games at that point) violated his due process rights and potentially jeopardized millions of dollars from his NIL (name, image, likeness) contract and future earnings in the NBA.

Indeed, his criminal defense attorneys have appeared eager to conclude the rape trial before the NBA draft begins on June 26.

A first-team All-Big Ten selection this season and last, the fifth-year guard guided the Illini to a Big Ten Tournament championship — being named Most Outstanding Player in the process — and a trip to the NCAA Tournament’s Elite Eight, where they were trounced by eventual champion Connecticut 77-52.

Shannon was named a third-team All-American this season. But his NBA aspirations could hinge on the outcome of his rape trial. Some basketball writers predict he could be taken as high as no. 13; others have him falling out of the first round.

“A cloud remains over his breakout season and the type of speed, athleticism, shotmaking improvement and defensive tools that would normally generate plenty of NBA interest,” a Bleacher Report article read.

The trip to Kansas

On May 10, as he prepared to receive his sociology degree from Illinois, Shannon appeared in a Douglas County courtroom for a preliminary hearing. A transcript of that proceeding offers the clearest picture to date of that early September evening.

Shannon and two roommates — teammate Justin Harmon and graduate assistant DyShawn Hobson — arrived in Lawrence about 45 minutes before the 6:30 p.m. kickoff, Shannon testified.

Hobson previously said in a sworn statement that he told Illini assistant coaches about his roommates’ plans to attend the Kansas game and was directed to drive the pair to and from Lawrence, a roughly six-and-a-half-hour drive each way.

Shannon testified that his group met some KU basketball players at a tailgate before the game. After the Illini’s defeat, the trio went to the dormitory that houses the basketball team, where, Shannon testified, he stayed for about an hour, drinking shots of Crown Royal.

Next, Shannon said, he and his roommates relocated to Jayhawk Cafe, known locally as “The Hawk.” Joined by other members of KU’s basketball team, they congregated in the bar’s Martini Room. Shannon continued to drink, testifying that his level of intoxication was a three or four on a scale of one to 10.

“Were you drunk?” his attorney asked.

“No, sir,” Shannon responded.

“And did you understand what was going on around you?”

“Yes, sir.”

At KU, where the basketball program was started by the game’s founder, James Naismith, the team’s players are celebrities, and their appearance at The Hawk drew the attention of other patrons. Shannon said he encountered other women that night, but he denied knowing his accuser or having any physical contact with her.

He also told his attorney he went to the bar that night mindful of his ultimate goal of being in the NBA.

“And do you monitor yourself and your behavior to make sure you don’t jeopardize that?” his attorney asked.

“All the time,” Shannon responded.

Shannon testified he left The Hawk near closing time, 2 a.m., and eventually returned to Champaign.

By then, his 18-year-old accuser was back at her apartment, she testified, tears in her eyes as she searched her phone for a photo of the man she said assaulted her.

30 seconds at The Hawk

Hours earlier, the 18-year-old woman had been at the KU football game with a friend. The two stopped home, she said, went to Jayhawk Cafe, left for a second bar and then returned to Ohio Street for another visit to The Hawk.

It was around 12:15 a.m. when they got there, she said. Down in the Martini Room, she had three sips of vodka and Red Bull, which she testified was her first drink of the night.

It was then that she said she saw the man she later identified as Shannon wave her over. She recognized one of the men next to him as a KU basketball player, she told the court, and as she got closer, she could see a woman to Shannon’s left “grinding on him.”

“I kind of made eye contact with him and he reached out his arm to grab me to pull him over towards him,” she testified. “So he kind of — I don’t remember where he grabbed me, but he grabbed me, and then as I got closer, he started grabbing on my hip area and my butt area.”

The entire encounter lasted maybe 30 seconds, she said. And at first, she said she didn’t have a problem with him touching her over her clothes.

But his right hand slid under her skirt, she said, and grabbed her butt. Next, she said she felt his hand move her underwear to the side and a finger inside her for what she estimated to be no more than 10 seconds.

Then, she said, he “just stopped.”

The two never spoke to each other. She said she froze, a drink in one hand and a phone in the other, both arms pressed near her chest.

“It didn’t even comprehend that was an option to me at that point,” she told the court when asked why she didn’t try to push him away. “I was so scared and shocked that I — the only way that I could react was standing there.”

When it was over, she said she pushed through the crowd in search of her friend, who was close but separated by other people. She said her friend didn’t immediately understand when she told her they needed to leave. She made her way to a hallway where she sat for a minute, she said, until her friend found her. The two left and drove home, getting there around 1:15 a.m.

In bed, replaying the events of the night, she said she grabbed her phone to search for the man’s identity. She knew the Jayhawks’ opponent that night had been the Illini, so, she said, she started scanning photos of football players for both teams. Remembering that he had been near a KU basketball player, she pulled up photos of the KU team and then the Illini squad.

She stopped at number 0: Terrence Shannon Jr.

“Immediately when I saw that picture, I knew it was him,” she told the court.

She testified that she didn’t initially think to call Lawrence police.

“My first thought was processing what had happened rather than immediately going to the police,” she said. “I didn’t even know if going to the police was an option I wanted to pursue, but I just realized that his actions are not just and I need justice, and girls should not have this happen to them.”

She spoke with Lawrence police that afternoon and went to a hospital the same day to have a sexual assault nurse examination kit collected.

Three months later, Lawrence police obtained a warrant for Shannon’s arrest, sparking his short-lived suspension from basketball and a university misconduct investigation that was eventually closed due to insufficient evidence.

A rejected plea deal and an alternative suspect

On May 31, the Lawrence Journal-World reported that Shannon rejected the state’s plea offer to amend his charge to one felony count of aggravated battery that was sexually motivated. He would have had to have registered as a sex offender for 15 years but could have avoided prison.

His attorneys, meanwhile, filed separate motions leading up to the trial, both of which attempted to poke holes in the state’s case.

In one motion, Shannon’s attorneys wrote that a Kansas Bureau of Investigation report on DNA evidence found no male DNA in swabs taken from the 18-year-old’s vaginal and external genital areas.

A forensic scientist commissioned by the defense reviewed the state agency’s data and concluded in a report filed by the defense that Shannon was excluded from a DNA profile found in a swab of the woman’s buttocks; a partial profile from an inner thigh swab was not suitable for comparison, the scientist wrote.

The scientist’s review of the KBI report also determined that the quantity of possible DNA in samples taken from the woman’s underwear were essentially too low to say whether they contained male DNA.

“The claim that ‘male DNA’ was located on the underwear swabs is not scientifically valid and should be excluded,” Shannon’s attorneys wrote in the motion.

Both sides asked the court to weigh in on whether the state’s DNA evidence, or the report from the defense’s forensic scientist, could be introduced at trial — a motion known in legalese as a Daubert hearing.

However, “in the interest of reaching trial expeditiously,” Shannon’s attorneys withdrew their request for such a hearing — his attorneys also opposed a state request to push back the trial’s start date during a status conference Tuesday in which the case was reassigned to a new judge due to a scheduling conflict.

Three days before the trial, Shannon’s lawyers won a judge’s approval to introduce evidence at trial of an alternative suspect.

That person is identified in attorney filings as a “third party defendant.” The Chicago Tribune is not naming him as he’s not been charged in connection with the 18-year-old woman’s alleged rape.

Shannon’s attorneys said they have witnesses and video from the Martini Room that put the third-party defendant in the spot where the 18-year-old said Shannon was standing when she encountered him.

Police have not questioned this third-party defendant while investigating the 18-year-old’s reported rape, Shannon’s attorneys said.

Additionally, Shannon’s attorneys said the third-party defendant was accused by a different woman — also 18 — of touching her vagina outside her pants, without her consent, two weeks before the alleged Shannon incident, in the same area of the Martini Room where Shannon’s accuser said she was assaulted. He was not charged in connection with that accusation.

The state sought, unsuccessfully, to prevent the jury from hearing evidence of that previous incident, arguing in a court filing that “neither the third party’s presence at a crowded bar, nor any evidence of his alleged propensity to commit unrelated crimes, indicate that the victim misidentified the defendant.”

And during cross-examination at the May 10 hearing, Shannon’s accuser said she was certain that the hand that touched her belonged to Shannon.

“I know that he never left physical contact as he grabbed me to pull me over,” she testified, “and then that was the incident.”

Hurley is set to fly out for a meeting with Lakers Vice President and GM Rob Pelinka and owner Jeanie Buss about the historic franchise’s head coaching vacancy on Friday, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski first reported on NBA Countdown Thursday evening. Wojnarowski broke the news of Los Angeles’ plan to offer the reigning back-to-back NCAA champion a “massive, long-term contract” early Thursday morning.

“They’ll start to dig into what a Hurley-Laker partnership would look like. Hurley knows Rob Pelinka, they have spent time together in the past, talked basketball, but this will be his first time meeting with Jeanie Buss,” Wojnarowski said.

“The Lakers would love to get a deal with Dan Hurley wrapped up this weekend. I expect these talks will move quickly, there’s a lot of traction here between Hurley and the Lakers, but they certainly have more talking to do about whether there’s a fit here. Dan Hurley, back at Connecticut, has a chance, obviously, to win a third-straight NCAA championship.”

According to Fox Sports’ John Fanta, Hurley met with the team Thursday morning and confirmed the reports, before holding practice at noon, about five hours after Wojnarowski’s initial report.

“It’s business as usual for now,” he told the players, according to Fanta.

UConn, Fanta reported, has offered the 2024 Naismith Coach of the Year “a lucrative new contract that would make him one of the highest-paid coaches in the country, featuring significant widespread benefits for him.” He received a new six-year, $32.1 million contract after winning the 2023 national championship, worth about $5 million annually.

Hall of Fame Kansas coach Bill Self earned about $9.63 million per year as the highest-paid coach in college basketball during the 2023-24 season, according to a USA Today database. Self was followed by John Calipari at Kentucky ($8.54 million), Michigan State’s Tom Izzo ($6.2 million) and Auburn’s Bruce Pearl ($5.72 million).

“The Los Angeles Lakers are targeting Connecticut’s Dan Hurley to become the franchise’s next coach and are preparing a massive, long-term contract offer to bring the back-to-back national champion to the NBA, sources tell ESPN,” Wojnarowski posted to X Thursday morning.

Hurley, who’s been working with UConn on a new contract since leading the program to a second consecutive national title this spring, turned down a reported pursuit from Kentucky after the departure of John Calipari this offseason. Now one of the most coveted coaches in the sport, Hurley said after UConn’s April 13 championship parade that he has “no desire to coach college basketball anywhere else.”

“Maybe down the road, you hope you can mature enough emotionally to, much later in my career, try to take a shot at the NBA – down the road, way down the road – but I’m not gonna coach anywhere else in college,” he added that day.

The Lakers, who dismissed second-year head coach Darvin Ham after their first round exit in the Western Conference playoffs, are hoping to shorten that road with a “massive, long-term contract offer,” according to Wojnarowski’s report.

There are at least six NBA coaches who are paid more than $10 million per year, according to USA Today. Steve Kerr, the four-time champion leading the Golden State Warriors, recently became the NBA’s highest-paid coach at $17.5 million annually. He is followed by legendary San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich ($16 million) and Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra ($15 million).

It is unknown what “massive” might mean in Hurley’s context, but in Los Angeles it could rival what Kansas’ Bill Self gets as the highest-paid coach in college basketball ($9.63 million annually). The salary floor for NBA head coaches is in the $4 million range – 19 college coaches, according to USA Today’s database, made at least that much during the 2023-24 season.

Hurley signed a six-year deal with UConn for $32.1 million, about $5 million per year plus incentives (similar to the $5 million salary Ham was paid by the Lakers, according to the Athletic), following the 2023 national championship, and was the seventh-highest-paid coach in college this past season, the USA Today database shows. That contract, which made Hurley the state’s highest-paid employee, is expected to be ripped up after Hurley led the Huskies to a second-consecutive title in April.

Dan Hurley met with his players at UConn this morning and informed them he's been in talks with the Lakers, a source tells Fox Sports. Hurley didn't want to hide the fact that this is real. Huskies have a noon practice and Hurley told his players it's business as usual for now.

— John Fanta (@John_Fanta) June 6, 2024

“The Lakers have had preliminary contact with Hurley and the sides are planning to escalate discussions in the coming days, sources told ESPN. Hurley has been at the forefront of the Lakers’ search from the beginning of the process, even while the organization has done its due diligence interviewing several other candidates, sources said,” Wojnarowski reported.

Shams Charania, an NBA insider for The Athletic, reported Tuesday that the Lakers were “zeroing in” on ESPN analyst JJ Redick, who had a 15-year NBA career, as the front-runner for the job.

According to Charania, the Lakers’ search “has been seriously focused on” Redick and James Borrego, the associate head coach of the New Orleans Pelicans, over the last couple of weeks. Current NBA assistants Sam Cassell (Boston Celtics), Chris Quinn (Miami Heat), Micah Nori (Minnesota Timberwolves) and David Adelman (Denver Nuggets) have also interviewed for the opening, according to both ESPN and The Athletic.

“Lakers vice president of basketball operations and general manager Rob Pelinka and governor Jeanie Buss are eager to formally discuss with Hurley their vision of marrying his dominant program – built upon both his tactical acumen and elite player development – with the storied Lakers brand, sources said,” according to Wojnarowski’s report, which noted that Hurley “has expressed to the Lakers a desire to explore the full picture of a partnership with one of basketball’s winningest franchises, sources said.”

Lakers superstar LeBron James has expressed his fondness for Hurley and his style in recent months. After Hurley appeared on JJ Redick’s podcast, ‘The Old Man and the Three,’ and discussed where he gets some of his offensive concepts, James posted on X, “He’s so DAMN GOOD!!! Along with his staff. Super creative with their O! Love it.”

He’s so DAMN GOOD!!! Along with his staff. Super creative with their O! Love it

— LeBron James (@KingJames) April 19, 2024

Hurley was asked about his potential new contract on Wednesday night after he spoke on a panel alongside legendary UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma at the UConn Coaches Road Show in Stamford, and said “it’s complicated.”

“There’s a business side of it which you allow your agent to advise you on… I’m not a businessman, I’m not good at that, I’m a one-trick pony. It’s probably taken more time than I think any of us would’ve liked, but it’s not something that’s ever been a rush for me,” he said. “When you’ve won back-to-back championships, you’re not calling your agent worried about the status of your contract. You’re more worried about recruiting, scheduling.

“You sacrifice a lot to do this job, it’s a high-pressure job… It’s a total commitment, a lot suffers because of it – your family, any chance at any type of a social life, it consumes everything that you have and there’s a price you pay for it. And you also have a market as a coach when you’ve accomplished a lot of things. Trying to find that sweet spot is something.”

As fast as he started talking about a three-peat, Hurley got busy in recruiting and scheduling, reloading a roster that is set to lose four of five starters using the transfer portal and landing one of the program’s top all-time high school recruits in Liam McNeeley.

Hurley was also “ecstatic” after Alex Karaban – who he said Wednesday could have an “All-American, Big East Player of the Year” type of season – made his decision to return for a chance at the three-peat, withdrawing from the NBA Draft just a week earlier.

The Huskies, 68-11 over the last two historic seasons, will enter 2024-25 as one of the top five teams in the nation, should Hurley decide to stay.

“We wholeheartedly believe that we’re right where we want to be where we’re going to be one of the best teams again. We’re very, very confident,” he said Wednesday night, about 12 hours before the Lakers reports came out. “If I didn’t think we were that good, I wouldn’t necessarily sound like this.”

Hurley met with his players Thursday morning and informed them that he has been in talks with the Lakers, FOX Sports’ John Fanta reported Thursday afternoon. “Hurley didn’t want to hide the fact that this is real. Huskies have a noon practice and Hurley told his players it’s business as usual for now,” Fanta posted on X.

The CFP announced its entire schedule Wednesday. The four first-round games will be on Dec. 20 and 21. ABC and ESPN will televise games on Friday and Saturday night with 7 p.m. CST kickoffs, while TNT will have the Dec. 21 day games at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.

The day games will go up against two NFL games: Houston-Kansas City at noon and Baltimore-Pittsburgh at 3:30 p.m.

Mike Mulvihill, Fox president for insights and analytics, thinks there will be room to accommodate both audiences. Fox has the Ravens-Steelers game as it goes up against a CFP late afternoon matchup.

“I think it will be fine for the NFL and college football to coexist on that date. I think both events will rate just fine,” he said.

The four first-round matchups, which will be played on college campuses, will be announced on Dec. 8. TNT has two games through a sublicense with ESPN.

ESPN’s $7.8 billion deal with the CFP, which was announced in March, allowed it to sublicense games to other networks. Financial terms of the sublicense were not announced.

The quarterfinals, semifinals and championship game will air on ESPN.

The top four conference champions will receive first-round byes. The quarterfinals will begin on Dec. 31 with the Fiesta Bowl at 6:30 p.m. CST. New Year’s Day will kick off with the Peach Bowl at noon, followed by the Rose Bowl in its traditional 4 p.m. spot and the Sugar Bowl at 7:45 p.m.

The semifinals are the Orange Bowl on Jan. 9 and Cotton Bowl on Jan. 10. Both have 6:30 p.m. CST start times before the championship game takes place on Jan. 20 in Atlanta.

ESPN will announce its schedule for most of the bowl games Thursday.

The Panthers’ inspiring postseason run, which came as the liberal arts college in Alabama was being shut down for financial failure after more than 160 years, ended on Sunday with an 11-10 loss to Wisconsin-Whitewater in the Division III College World Series.

It’s a painful finish for a never-say-die team that had brought so much joy to the school’s tight-knit community while captivating the hearts of American sports fans who could relate to the Panthers’ story mixed with loss and pride.

Birmingham-Southern built a 10-5 lead through six innings, but couldn’t put away Wisconsin-Whitewater, which scored two runs in the seventh, three in the eighth and got a walk-off homer from Sam Paden leading off the ninth.

Someone had to be the villain.

When Paden’s homer dropped well behind the wall in left, several Birmingham-Southern players stood still as if frozen in disbelief.

There wasn’t a storybook ending after all.

Moments later, coach Jay Weisberg and his players lined up down the third-base line and together they tipped their caps to BCS fans who had made the trip to Cleveland and had been lifted by the team.

The loss is not only the final chapter for Birmingham-Southern but also its solid baseball program, which was vying for its first national title — the Panthers were national runners-up in 2019 — amid the backdrop of no longer having a school.

The doors at BSC were officially shut on Friday as the Panthers opened the eight-team double-elimination tournament with a loss to Salve Regina.

And while they won’t be going home with a trophy, Birmingham-Southern’s players brought joy to a community still grappling with the fact that the school is gone forever.

The Panthers featured a familiar name to Chicago baseball fans in starting pitcher Drake LaRoche (8-3, 3.21 ERA). The junior right-hander is the son of former big-league first baseman Adam LaRoche and was at the center of a controversy on the 2016 White Sox when the then-14-year-old Drake’s clubhouse privileges were restricted, leading his father to retire during spring training. LaRoche took the loss in Friday’s game against Salve Regina, which had moved Birmingham-Southern to the elimination bracket.