Ex-Duke guard Rasheed Sulaimon denies sexual assault allegations
Three months after he was dismissed from Duke and three weeks after he watched his former teammates celebrate winning a national championship without him, Rasheed Sulaimon finally broke his public silence.
The ex-Duke guard conducted an interview with ESPN.com on Wednesday in which he denied that he had committed sexual assault and insisted those allegations were not the primary reason coach Mike Krzyzewski booted him off the team in late January.
"I have never sexually assaulted, not only anyone on the Duke campus, but anyone period," Sulaimon told ESPN.com's Jeff Goodman. "It's not in my nature at all. I have great respect for the role of women in society. I would never demean or do anything to a woman in this manner. No, I've never done anything like this in my life."
Sulaimon's denial comes nearly two months after a Duke Chronicle report that the junior guard had been the subject of rape allegations prior to his dismissal. The newspaper reported two female students had accused Sulaimon of sexual assault during the 2013-14 school year, but neither formally reported the incidents to the police or Duke's Office of Student Conduct.
Sulaimon would not specify what specific incident led to his dismissal, but he intimated that most of the problems between he and Krzyzewski stemmed from his poor attitude over diminishing playing time during his sophomore and junior seasons.
Once seemingly headed for stardom after averaging 11.6 points and 3.4 rebounds per game as a freshman, Sulaimon saw his importance diminish as talented wings like Jabari Parker, Rodney Hood and Quinn Cook eclipsed him in Duke's rotation. Krzyzewski even left the former McDonald's All-American on the bench for an entire game against Michigan during the 2013-14 season, cryptically telling reporters afterward, "He has to play better than the guys who played tonight."
"I'm a very competitive guy and I believe I should have been starting," Sulaimon told ESPN.com. "Quite simply, I just got frustrated. In retrospect, in looking back on it, I didn't handle it well at all. My immaturity and me being frustrated with hitting adversity, I think it greatly impacted my relationship with Coach K heavily."
Despite his diminishing production each season at Duke and the severity of the sexual assault allegations, Sulaimon will be a coveted player on the transfer market this spring. He remains enrolled in classes at Duke and is working toward graduating this summer, which would make him eligible to play his senior season right away at the school of his choice.
Maryland was the first school to be linked to Sulaimon, a natural fit given the Terps' hole at shooting guard. The ESPN.com story indicated Sulaimon has received interest from more than a dozen other schools including Arizona State, Baylor, Colorado, George Washington, Houston, LSU, Memphis, Oklahoma State, Seton Hall, SMU, Texas, Texas Southern and Texas A&M.
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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
