Yale basketball team losing support of classmates

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- The men's basketball team at Yale has qualified for the 2016 NCAA tournament for the first time in 54 years -- they will face Baylor in the first round. It should be a time of celebration, but there is also scandal.

When the Yale bulldogs advanced to the tournament this year, for the first time since 1962, the team danced into the national spotlight.

But that light is now shining hard on the team's ex-captain, Jack Montague, who was apparently expelled a few weeks ago amid rumors of sexual misconduct accusations.

"We just circle the wagons. You know, in a situation like this you got to come in close together, believe in each other, and fight harder," said James Jones, the head coach.

What is he telling his team as they prepare for the NCAA tournament?

"I'm just telling them to go out and have some fun here," he said.

Getting this far should have been especially rewarding -- because the Bulldogs just missed the tournament last year, losing to Harvard, by two points.

Back then, they were missing forward Brandon Sherrod, who took the year off to travel with Yale's a Capella group the "Whiffenpoofs."

This year he's back.

"All that he learned through his interaction he had around the world has come back to help our basketball team," Jones said.

But now, they've lost their captain, and because the team supports him, they've also lost some of the support of their classmates too.

After the team wore T-shirts to the Ivy League championship game, with Montague's nickname on the back, posters appeared on campus warning the Bulldogs to "stop supporting a rapist."

"To show support in the most public and provocative way possible, you know it was a nationally televised game. I think that's very, very irresponsible," said Helen Price, the director of Unite Against Sexual Assault Yale.

The team later apologized.

CBS News asked Jones if, as the coach, it is frustrating that the headline isn't necessarily focused on the team and what he's accomplished, to which Jones replied: "I can't tell you how happy I am in terms of what we accomplished with this group of young men knowing that we completed what we set out to do at the start of the season."

The players hope to use their positions on and off the court in a way that can make everyone proud. New Haven Police say there are no cases involving Montague.