PROVIDENCE– This was supposed to be the calm before the storm.

Yale, which has won the Ivy League basketball championship for the first time since 1962, should be in a joyous mood. But the 12th-seeded Bulldogs have chosen to limit their celebration leading up to their NCAA first round game against Baylor here Thursday at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center.

This 22-6 team has been,mired in controversy ever since their senior captain Jack Montague was expelled on Feb. 10 three months after a female student filed a sexual misconduct claim against him with the school’s University wide Committee on Sexual Misconduct, which handles such claimed under federal Title IX laws, claiming Montague has non consensual sex with her in Oct. 2014. Montague said the sex was consensual and that she returned to spend the night with him after the alleged incident.

The committee of five investigated the incident and the ruled against Montague, based on “a preponderance of evidence.”

This is not exactly the way the Yale players thought its first trip to the NCAA Tournament would play out after a 52-year old drought.

They are trying their best to make sure distractions don’t get in the way.

“I really can’t comment on the Jack situation, but like I’ve said before basketball is a sanctuary,” Yale’s star 6-8 senior forward Justin Sears said. “We go to one of the hardest academic schools in the country and when we step on the court all the outside distractions are gone. This is a game we love to play. And when I step on the court, I’m not thinking about anything except putting the ball in the basket and helping my team win.”

Some of his teammates Nick Victor and Anthony Dallier went into bunker mentality, issuing blanket “No comment” responses whenever the subject came up in pregame locker room interviews.

“We’re focused on playing basketball,” junior forward Brandon Sherrod said. “Obviously we know these questions will come up and we’ll answer them as candidly as we can, but we’re here to play basketball and win a game. I think if we do that, maybe the pressure of answering these questions might go away.”
The incident has inflamed this academic citadel in New Haven.

The Bulldogs have already made their feelings known when they warmed up for a game against Harvard Feb. 13 wearing T-shirts with Montague’s nickname, “Gucci” as well as the world “Yale” inverted. The following Monday, posters appeared around campus featuring pictures of the team wearing the shirts along with the phrase, “Stop supporting a rapist.”

Most of the posters were quickly removed, but more were put up that Wednesday. Last week, the group United Against Sexual Assault Yale invited people to write their feelings in chalk on tiles in front of the Sterling Memorial Library. Hundreds did, with messages such as “The only team I’m rooting for are survivors @Yale– dismantle men’s athletic privilege.”

Organizer Helen Price said the event was not meant to condemn the basketball team or Montague. “We aimed to give people an outlet for the frustration and anger they have felt at Yale’s sexual climate for a long time, the basketball incident was just a catalyst.”

Tensions have been high and Montague, who lives in Tennessee, has since hired the law firm of Jacobs, Dow, LLC in Boston to represent him. He personally weighed in Monday, releasing a detailed statement disputing claims that he had assaulted a woman on campus. His lawyer Max Stern said Montague was being used as “a whipping boy” by a school that recently settled a federal complaint over its handling of sexual assault cases and that the former player would file a federal lawsuit against the school next week in Connecticut.

In a statement, Stern said Montague and the student engaged in sex several times and claimed that the decision to expel Montague was arbitrary and extreme, depriving Montague of a degree and destroying his educational and basketball careers.

I have no idea whether Montague is guilty or a victim of mob mentality. According to reports, police said Montague does not face criminal charges in New Haven and that there is no active investigation involving him. But, at the same time, if Yale believes the charges have merit, it would be morally wrong for the school not to do everything possible to keep its students safe and not condone a win at all cost attitude.

It may be time for all universities to turn all information in cases like this over to the authorities and let them determine whether a crime has been committed instead of allowing a dean or provost decide a student’s fate behind the velvet ropes and then hide behind federal confidentiality laws. It would open the floodgates. There are 55 schools currently being investigated by the Department of Education for their handling of sexual assault. But a move like this would give parents, female co-eds and alums peace of mind that universities are doing something to improve an increasingly hostile environment for women and serve notice to any potential predators.

Yale’s basketball team, to its credit, has been able to regroup without their captain, winning seven of its last eight games to win a highly competitive Ivy League with a group of dedicated seniors– Sears, Sherrod and Victor.

The landscape in the Ivies is changing. It is no longer Penn and Princeton, Princeton and Penn. Yale won the league with a 13-1 league record this year, one game ahead of Princeton and three ahead of an improved Columbia (10-4). Hopefully, the Bulldogs’ season will not be defined by an incident none of the current players were involved in.

This Yale team has a chance to build on a growing tradition that started in 2010 when Cornell advanced to the Sweet Sixteen Harvard defeated both New Mexico and Cincinnati in second round games in 2013 and 2014 and rallied to put North Carolina on the ropes during a 67-65 second round loss last year in Jacksonville.

Yale will get a chance to create its own piece history against fifth-seeded Big 12 power Baylor (22-11). “I’ve been the basketball coach here for 17 years,” Bulldogs’ coach James Jones said. “This is the first time we’ve made the tournament since 1962. We are one of the best defensive teams in the country. We are one of the best rebounding teams in the country. So I think it’s a great story. And I’d like to tell that one going forward.”