re: Still no decision on Smart as of 7:25.

I've never thought he would play again this year. LSU has taken the "abundance of caution" approach and they cant reinstate Smart without the question arising as to why Wade isn't reinstated as well?

I suspect we hear something along these lines: NCAA and LSU officials met with Smart and his family. All denied wrongdoing. However, in order for Smart to be cleared, LSU and NCAA officials requested to speak with Wade about the substance of the tapes. Wade refused to do so. Thus, we can't completely clear Smart.

The LSU administration (and surprisingly, I don't think it's fully Alleva) has decided internally that the remainder of this basketball season is immaterial to the big picture. If LSU loses today, or the 1st round of the NCAAT, they don't care.

The problem is at this point there is really no future to save. You've asked the NCAA to come investigate you and sanction you if necessary. The relationship between school and HC is likely irreparably broken. There is no trust between either side. The players that likely would have returned for next season (Smart, E. Williams, Days, Taylor, Hyatt) are going to be poached by opportunistic schools

Perhaps LSU would have eventually gotten hit with heavy penalties. But we are in uncharted territory where there isn't just negative information on a "rouge" school. There are dozens of schools who could plausibly be investigated once the federal trials are done. This is an NCAA problem. Not simply a LSU problem.

Yet, despite the overall landscape in college basketball and the unknown scope of the future fallout, LSU's administration has for all practical purposes given themselves a preemptive "death penalty" without any assurances whatsoever it will do anything to mitigate future sanctions. No quality coach is going to want to come work for this administration. The talent you have now will leave and without a quality coach, along with an administration who will be even stricter on recruiting, you're not getting many great players anytime soon.

The "sting" of the death penalty is the inability to sign great players. Reduced scholarships = less good players on your team. Less good players = losing. Losing = a program unattractive to great players. LSU didn't wait for sanctions. They simply chose to make their program unattractive to anyone

LSU basketball right now is like a house where mom started a grease fire in the kitchen. It potentially could have been contained to just the kitchen. But the administrations effort to contain the fire was to basically dump gasoline all over to effective burn down the entire house, just so an outsider wouldn't come in and burn it down. However, the reality is that the outsider will come along anyway just to piss on the ashes