When police arrested Iowa State point guard Bubu Palo in September and charged him with sexual abuse, it stunned us in more ways than one. Palo, the gritty former walk-on with terrific grades and no prior criminal history, seemed like the most unlikely candidate for a charge so severe. At the time, we wrote on this very website that Palo would “likely never play for the Cyclones again unless he’s fully exonerated.”
Funny you should mention that. Earlier this week, prosecutors dropped charges against Palo after forensic evidence showed the science wasn’t quite matching up to the victim’s story. The victim had said her blouse was torn during a sexual encounter and that she washed it 10 days afterwards, but the evidence proved the contrary. The blouse was actually torn after it was washed. As Palo’s attorney puts it: “A dismissal is as close as vindication as you can get in a situation such as this.” So, after essentially finding his version of “full exoneration,” Palo will return to the court sometime this month, possibly as soon as next week against Texas Tech. This is why it’s so important to not rush to judgment when athletes get in trouble. There are times when they do wrong. So, so many times, in fact. In this case, however, Palo has, in his attorney’s words, been “vindicated,” and he can now move on with us life barring an update in the case or new charges.
On the basketball side of things, it’ll probably take Palo a few weeks to get back into a flow, but he’ll make an immediate impact when he returns. He’s the definition of a glue guy, and he will make life a heck of a lot easier for starting point guard Korie Lucious. He’s currently averaging more than 31 minutes per game, even though he never averaged more than 25 MPG at Michigan State. Palo is a steady upperclassman who plays good defense, hustles and makes smart decisions, so he’ll give Lucious the chance to take a breather every so often. Yup, sounds like the epitome of a former walk-on, right? The sexual abuse charges sure didn’t.