Ex-Nebraska basketball player sues university after sex scandal

A former women’s basketball player at Nebraska has sued the university and her former coaches after she said she was groomed to have a sexual relationship with one of them and then was kicked off the team after their relationship was uncovered in a ruse at a team hotel.

The former player, Ashley Scoggin, said former Nebraska assistant coach Chuck Love groomed her for sex by asking her out for drinks, sending her messages on SnapChat and meeting her in the parking lot of Costco, where he kissed her and asked her, “Have you ever done anything with a coach before?”

The lawsuit seeks compensatory and punitive damages for allegedly violating her civil rights and causing her pain and suffering. It says head coach Amy Williams punished her for Love’s abuse of power after teammates and Nebraska practice players created a scheme to confirm and record Scoggin’s presence in Love’s hotel room the night before they played at Penn State on Feb. 17, 2022. Nebraska suspended Love after that but didn’t say why. He later resigned. Scoggin, 25, transferred to UNLV for her senior season.

The lawsuit names Williams and Love as defendants, along with athletic director Trev Alberts and the university’s board of regents. It says they mishandled the situation, including after the ruse at Penn State.

“This ruse included a practice player falsely representing himself as Love to a (hotel) desk clerk in order to obtain Love’s room key,” said the lawsuit, which was filed Sunday in federal district court in Nebraska. “It ended in two team members confronting Ashley in Love’s room. They reported their findings and showed their video recording to Williams.”

Her lawsuit also said Love began to pressure her to participate in a sexual threesome with him and an undisclosed other man but after she refused, she felt like she was given less playing time.

“When Love wanted to have sex, he expected Ashley to be available and willing,” the suit states. “Because Love was married and Ashley did not live alone, this involved sexual relations in different locations in University of Nebraska Department of Athletics facilities. It also included summoning Ashley to his hotel room when the team traveled to road games.”

Suspicions about their relationship culminated in the incident at Penn State. After that, head coach Williams cast Scoggin "in the role of a seducer and a liar,” the suit states. “She allowed the players to berate and accuse Ashley for hours. She did not redirect or counsel the players that what they had seen may be the result of an abuse of power by her Associate Head Coach.”

After being kicked off the team, Scoggin said she lost her housing because she shared an apartment with a roommate. The suit states she also lost access to physical therapy that she had been receiving as a member of the basketball team. Then when she began work on transferring to another program, she discovered that access to her game film had been disabled.

“This instance of reckless and callous indifference to Ashley’s safety and constitutional rights should be punished through the imposition of punitive damages so as to make an example of conduct that will not be tolerated,” the lawsuit states.

Nebraska didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com