FLINT, Mich. — Mateen Cleaves became a star on a basketball court, but on Tuesday a jury acquitted him on all charges in his rape case in Genesee (Michigan) County Circuit Court.

Cleaves is the Flint native who led Michigan State to the 2000 NCAA championship. He faced up to 15 years in prison if he were convicted of unlawful imprisonment, assault with intent to commit sexual penetration, and criminal sexual conduct.

A jury of nine women and three men began deliberating his case at 1:45 p.m. and reached a verdict in about two and a half hours.

Cleaves leaped from his chair when the verdict was read and threw his arms around the lead attorney, Frank Manley, sobbing into his shoulder.

"Lifesavers," Cleaves shouted later in the hallway as he embraced Manley and his brother, Mike Manley, another attorney on Cleaves' team.

Judge Celeste Bell had to silence the crowd in the courtroom and later in the hallway, courthouse security guards tried to quiet the crowd because other cases were still proceeding in nearby courtrooms.

The case is one that has been marked by controversy from the start almost four years ago. On the courthouse steps, Cleaves smiled, hugged his lawyers and his wife and said he was relieved that his case was finally over.

"I just thank God, I've been waiting for this day for four years," Cleaves said to the cheers of fa crowd gathered around him. "The Manley brothers are lifesavers, to save my life, the way they did."

Cleaves also thanked his wife for her support "from day one."

"I want to publicly apologize to her because I never should have put her in this situation," Cleaves said. "She's a great wife and a great mother to my kids."

Asked what he thought persuaded the jury to acquit Cleaves, Frank Manley said: "The truth. The truth set Mateen Cleaves free."

Lisa Lindsey, the lead prosecutor on the case, declined comment after the verdict.

The case threatened to rewrite the life story of Cleaves, an overachiever who used toughness and grit to survive the violence of Flint, return glory to MSU basketball and become the first-round draft pick of the Detroit Pistons. Michigan State basketball coach Tom Izzo held Cleaves in such high regard that he used Mateen as a middle name for his own son.

Izzo attended closing arguments in Flint this morning, but declined to comment other than to say that Cleaves "is part of the family."

Prosecutors said none of that mattered. In September 2015, Cleaves forced himself on a drunken woman who ran from a motel room wearing only a bra in an attempt to flee him, they argued. Drunk and naked himself, they say, Cleaves pulled her back inside, twice, and raped her.

Assistant Wayne County Prosecutor David Champine told jurors that Cleaves' lawyer would try to argue the sex was consensual but the evidence shows otherwise. He urged them to "look at the surveillance video of the woman running away, screaming 'help me, help me, help me' and then being forced back into the room."

Those are not the actions of a woman engaged in a consensual sex act, Champine said.

Lindsey told jurors that the woman was the "perfect victim" and that Cleaves targeted her specifically because she was drunk and therefore, less likely to resist, flee or to be believed.

"No woman is obligated to have sex with anyone," Lindsey said.

One of Cleaves' four attorneys, Mike Manley, said in his closing argument that the sex was consensual, noting that the woman posed for pictures with Cleaves, put his phone number into her phone, went to motel room with him, where she acknowledged kissing him.

When the woman left the room wearing only her bra, Cleaves was doing the right thing by bringing her back so she could get dressed, Manley said.

"All you saw there was a gentleman going out to make sure that a lady wasn't walking around a motel naked," he said.

Manley also offered a blistering critique of Cleaves' accuser, saying that when she spoke with police who were called to the motel, "you had an obnoxious, belligerent, remorseful drunk at that point."

Cleaves wore a gray pinstripe suit to court, hugging several supporters on the courthouse steps as he entered. He sat silently through the closing arguments.

Izzo sat in the front row about 10 feet from Cleaves. The courtroom was full and court officers set up an overflow room where others could watch the proceedings on closed circuit television.

Among those in the gallery was Robert Carmack, the Detroit businessman who's been embroiled in a dispute with Mayor Mike Duggan.

Contact John Wisely: jwisely@freepress.com. On Twitter @jwisely.