LSU head basketball coach Will Wade has been suspended indefinitely by LSU in the wake of reports of an FBI wiretap involving his activities in a college basketball corruption scandal, specifically his actions in recruiting Javonte Smart. Tiger Rag Assistant Editor Tyler Nunez says it’s clear the school is taking no chances, particularly with the FBI involved.
“It was pretty clear from the beginning that the NCAA was going to get involved, if it wasn’t already. My thoughts were that LSU was going to wait until after this trial, but it looks like LSU has been working with them since at least October when those first media reports came out.”
Wade has been subpoenaed for a corruption trail in April.
The accusations against Wade are on the recruiting side, but Nunez says interim head coach Tony Benford now has to deal with the dark cloud over the remainder of the season, and figure out how to adjust in time for the SEC tournament, and the NCAA tournament shortly afterwards.
“The hallmarks of a good coach are to put a good staff of people around you, and he’s done that, he has a lot of good assistants and analysts that help him make the decisions that he makes.”
The Tigers are the 10th ranked team in the nation, and riding their best season in a decade, featuring exhilarating wins over Kentucky and Tennessee, and they won’t have much time to adjust either with a game against Vanderbilt set for 7:30 Saturday night. Nunez says the players will have to put that aside and play a game with major significance.
“They have a lot on the line, they could win a share of the SEC Championship at the very least, and this is definitely going to put a cloud over things.”
Vandy is win-less in conference play this year, and is riding an 18 game losing streak.
