A Tulane University basketball player who was sidelined before the season has been arrested and barred from team activities after a woman accused him of raping her. 

Bul Ajang, a 6-foot-10 native of South Sudan who came to Tulane on a basketball scholarship but played sparingly because of an injury, was booked Monday with third-degree rape after he was accused of forcing himself on a woman after a night on the town. He is out of jail on a $10,000 bond.

The alleged victim told investigators that she, Ajang and others went to a bar on Sunday to drink and dance, according to a police account of the case filed in Orleans Parish Criminal District Court. She said the next thing she remembered was waking up to find Ajang forcing her into sex in a strange bedroom.

The woman said she rejected Ajang and told him she wanted to go home, police said. She said the 22-year-old player then “hit her to the right part of her forehead and continued having sex with her.” 

Eventually, Ajang called a ride-share service, which brought the pair to the woman’s home in the Florida neighborhood, police said. 

The woman said she was dropped off, ran into her home and told her live-in boyfriend that Ajang had assaulted her. She called 911 to report that she had been raped, then went to University Medical Center and underwent a sexual assault examination, police said.

Without elaborating, police said they didn’t see any visible facial injuries on the woman.

Police said they interviewed Ajang at Tulane Medical Center, where he was receiving treatment for injuries that he claimed he suffered after being attacked by the woman’s boyfriend when he dropped her off.

In his interview, Ajang offered a different version of events.

He said he and his roommate had gone to visit one of the woman’s roommates, according to police. From there, Ajang said his accuser accompanied him and his roommate to a party before Ajang and the woman went alone to a bar to continue drinking, which they had been doing throughout the evening.

According to police, Ajang said the two were “(messed) up” when they went to his Uptown home and began having sex. He said they stopped when the woman asked to go home, and he called a ride-share service.

Ajang said her boyfriend attacked him as he was dropping her off.

An attorney for Ajang couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. Tulane sports information director Tom Symonds said Ajang no longer has any association with the program. He remains a student at the university.

Third-degree rape in Louisiana can carry up to 25 years in prison but has no mandatory minimum punishment. Authorities can pursue that charge against anyone they suspect knowingly had sex with a person whose ability to consent was incapacitated by alcohol or some other substance.

Ajang played only occasionally for two years at Tulane under former coach Mike Dunleavy Sr.

After scoring a career-high five points in the Green Wave’s American Athletic Conference opener at Cincinnati last season, he played in just three more games before a chronic knee problem sidelined him last January for the rest of the season.

New coach Ron Hunter said in August that Ajang had undergone knee surgery and would get a medical hardship from the NCAA, ending his playing career.

“He’s going to stay on scholarship and be my personal assistant coach,” Hunter said at the time. “I just don’t think you should run kids off because of an illness or something like that. He’s going to be with us until he graduates here and, if he wants to stay with us, after he graduates.”

Ajang, a business major, signed with Tulane in November 2016 out of the Patrick School in New Jersey.

In April 2014, New Orleans police booked a Tulane football player on an allegation that he raped a woman on campus who was too intoxicated to consent to sex, but prosecutors later dropped the case. The woman from that case also filed a lawsuit against that player, a teammate and the university, which Tulane ultimately settled.

A student survey Tulane conducted a few years ago found that four in 10 undergraduate women said they had been subjected to unwanted sexual contact. That survey prompted the university to adopt a number of measures aimed at preventing sexual violence, including a faculty guide on how to talk with students about sexual violence and a standardized training guide educating students on healthy relationships.

This story has been updated since it was first published. 

Suspended England all-rounder Ben Stokes has been withdrawn from the squad for this month’s five-match one-day international series against Australia and was replaced by batsman Dawid Malan, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) said on Monday.

Stokes, who was provisionally named in England’s squad, is awaiting a decision on whether he will be charged by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for his involvement in an altercation outside a Bristol nightclub in September.

The ECB said he would not travel with the group of players leaving for Australia on Tuesday and his availability will depend on CPS advice.

“Should ECB receive formal confirmation that he has either, a) been charged or, b) will face no charges, the ECB board would convene within 48 hours to make a decision on his availability to represent England at that stage,” said the ECB on ecb.co.uk.

The ECB said Stokes has been cleared to participate in the player draft for the Indian Premier League Twenty20 tournament.

The first one-day international between Australia and England will be played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on January 14th.

– (Reuters)