TERRENCE SHANNON IS THE PARIAH OF MARCH, A YEAR AFTER BRANDON MILLER
The Illinois guard has been charged with rape in Kansas, yet the university keeps him in the lineup for the NCAA tournament, bringing nationwide abuse to a program that Alabama faced regarding Miller
Reading the NBA’s news releases, we’d never know if Brandon Miller brought a dangerous weapon to a shooting that killed a woman 14 months ago. He has been named the Eastern Conference’s Rookie of the Month on two straight ballots. His salary is $10.9 million this season. The Charlotte Hornets like the pick very much.
This is desecration for the family of Jamea Jonae Harris, victims who view Miller as the driver of the car in which a gun was found that led to her shooting near the University of Alabama campus. In October, a federal wrongful death lawsuit was filed against Miller and two men facing capital murder charges, Michael Davis and Darius Miles. The family is desperate to know if Davis, Miles and Miller “knew or should have known that bringing a dangerous weapon to a dispute and discharging said weapon would likely result in harm.” Davis, who allegedly pulled the trigger, is in lockup with Miles at Tuscaloosa County Jail.
Miller? After claiming he wasn’t delivering a weapon to illegal activity, he hasn’t addressed the horrific incident since last March, when he said of Harris, 23, and her 6-year-old son: “I never lose sight of the fact that a family lost one of their loved ones that night. This whole situation is just really heartbreaking.” Life carried on for the 6-foot-8 forward and his seven-foot wingspan, with a maximum contract awaiting somewhere in the league.
“He has a chance to be terrific, obviously,” Hornets coach Steve Clifford said.
The episode destroyed March Madness for Alabama, which blew its national title hopes by losing in the Sweet 16 amid Miller’s subpar performances. In the same vein, don’t be shocked if the University of Illinois faces similar issues as the Fighting Illini eye their first Final Four since a high-drama 2005 season. Another player considered a first-round draft pick, Terrence Shannon Jr., is playing only because a federal judge granted a temporary restraining order. Miller was involved in murder.
Shannon faces one count of rape, as charged on Dec. 28 in Lawrence, Kan. Just as fans ask why Miller was allowed to play last season, similar questions are asked of Shannon, who has no idea what will happen publicly when the Big Ten tournament starts in Minneapolis and the NCAA tournament is played across the land. What if he is involved in a criminal arrest? Is this how the school wants to be remembered?
It’s a case that makes Illinois officials look imprecise, if not purposely vague, in protecting the shooting guard. When Shannon visited the University of Kansas to watch an Illini football game in September, a woman told a detective that she was in a busy bar when he penetrated her with his finger and held her buttocks after he put his hand under her skirt. When documents were sent that month from Lawrence police to university police at Illinois, they weren’t shared with the department of athletics, according to the Chicago Tribune. Wrote detective Josh Leitner in an email, seeking a search warrant for Shannon’s DNA: “Attached are my narrative reports I have completed on this case as well as a summary of what I would write in the affidavit for search warrant if I were the author.”
Not until late December was Shannon arrested and suspended from the team. Only three weeks later, U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Lawless granted him the injunction to play, saying the university didn’t supply “adequate safeguards” in its response and that he would “suffer irreparable harm” while suspended. Said his attorneys: “His NBA career will tank, as will his reputation, the ability to support his family, his ability to play collegiate athletics (and perhaps professional sports), and his presumption of innocence.”
What about those three months of inaction? Does anyone in Champaign care? Why was Shannon inside a bar near campus, anyway? Did it not cross manipulative minds that Bill Self, who will make $53 million over the next five years as Kansas’ championship leader, once coached at Illinois? Wouldn’t someone have noticed a first-team, all-conference guard hanging out? Days later, with his arrest, Shannon was bombarded by fans at Northwestern.
“No means no.”
“Lock him up.”
“Guilty.”
His coach, Brad Underwood, said the outcry was insignificant after an overtime loss. “We get all kinds of chants,” he said. “We’re playing basketball. We’ve been in a lot of environments in this league. I had chicken wings thrown at me at Maryland.”
But Tuesday night, after a home loss to national contender Purdue, Underwood roughed up his players for not understanding “a possession or two, a rebound, a loose ball. That’s what sends you home in March.” Then he kept going: “If we don’t understand that we’re really, really good and we can be a Final Four team, I believe that. I’m telling you now I believe that, but you’ve got to make those plays. You can put those (quotes) in bold, italics, on every newspaper, on every damn chat line that I never read. I don’t care. Make big plays to stay alive.”
When asked to elaborate by a reporter, Underwood brought up his boss, athletic director Josh Whitman. They are partners in the Shannon mess. “Hell, what do you think I get paid to (do)?” he said. “Josh pays me a lot of money to keep hammering that (bleep) home. You guys come up with a bad question like that, you’re going to get a crappy answer. … And I don’t mean to be a jerk, but that’s what we do.”
Finally, he hammered Shannon, who had no defensive rebounds. “Zero. Best athlete on the court,” he said. “He and I are going to have a hard talk about that as we go into postseason play. That’s where Ayo (Dosunmu) blossomed. Ayo figured out triple-doubles and ‘Let me get defensive rebounds so I can get out and run.’ Off night for Terrence, but we’ll get that (fixed). He’s a very conscientious young man and wants to win more than anybody.”
Life, Underwood said, is about “winners and losers.” One more time, he said, “You can’t not make those plays. We’ve got to get them to understand the urgency of the end, the abruptness of the end. If you don’t do it, you go home.”
Or, if you’re Terrence Shannon Jr., you might be headed back to Kansas.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.