Ex-NMSU basketball players say teammates targeted coaches - ESPN

The two former New Mexico State basketball players who say they were sexually assaulted by teammates told ESPN that their alleged attackers targeted others on the team, including some assistant coaches, and manipulated players into not talking.

«There were most definitely other players that got attacked the way that we got attacked,» Shakiru Odunewu said in an interview this week. «But… these other guys, I feel like they manipulated them to believe that if they came out, that they were snitching.»

Odunewu and Deuce Benjamin told ESPN the players who harassed them also pulled down assistant coaches' pants in public.

«After the [game] at UTEP, when we lost, they pantsed one of the assistants,» Benjamin said. One assistant coach had his pants pulled down while he slept on the bus, he said, and another was targeted but yelled enough to dissuade the attackers. "[Other coaches acted] like they didn't see it," Benjamin said.

The coaches who the players said were targeted didn't return voicemails or emails from ESPN seeking comment.

Benjamin and Odunewu told ESPN about the behavior after they spoke publicly Wednesday for the first time since suing New Mexico State in April. In their lawsuit, they allege that the activity went beyond harassment to sexual assault and that three of their teammates would pull down their pants, slap their buttocks and touch their scrotums. Odunewu reported the abuse to then-head coach Greg Heiar, who told Odunewu he would look into it and issue suspensions but didn't, according to the lawsuit. Benjamin reported the alleged abuse to campus police in February, leading New Mexico State to cancel the rest of the team's season and fire Heiar. The police investigation is ongoing, and no one has been