This event did not happen in a vacuum. Less than a year ago, the gopher Men's basketball team was involved in an incident involving video of a sexual encounter where several people were in the room as witnesses and/or participants. As a result of that incident, several Gopher student-athletes were suspended, and one wound up leaving school.
Obviously, I don't know what coaches say to players behind closed doors, but I would be shocked if the coaches of every single athletic team at the U did not talk to their players about the previous incident, and explain the consequences of getting into this type of situation.
It's pretty damn simple: if you're a scholarship athlete, don't put yourself in questionable situations. If you wind up in a situation involving a woman, alcohol, and multiple men - AND you're a scholarship athlete, a huge alarm bell should be going off in your head saying "GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!!!!!"
I don't know exactly what happened in this new situation, but it seems reasonably clear that a group of scholarship athletes from the FB team allowed themselves to get into a situation that resulted in a criminal investigation, a restraining order being filed, and a court hearing. That - IMHO - shows very poor decision-making on their part. I don't care if this involves the best player on the team, or the worst player on the team. They deserved the suspension, and I would have no problem if the coaching staff released any of these players from their scholarships - or at the very least, made it crystal-clear to all of the players that it's zero tolerance from this point on. Get into any trouble - violate any team rule - and you're gone. If that hurts the team's performance, well, the blame is with the players. I would hope there will be some peer pressure from their teammates to stay out of trouble in the future.
