No one in NCAA basketball is "innocent". Perhaps you should cite specific posts you're referring to, if there are any. No offense, but it's a stupid FKing contention.

Wade is young, inexperienced in many ways, and doesn't have 1/10th the protective infrastructure that a program like Kentucky, Duke, UNC, or Kansas would have in place. Given that, yes he was wrong to have the conversation. He obviously never considered the possibility of a wiretap or of the other guy recording his statements. Regardless of its true subject matter, meaning, or intent, his surreptitiously obtained, excerpted, and released comments sound bad. The words he chose, and perhaps the conversation itself were a mistake. So was his suspension.

The difference being, his suspension was not some spontaneous, candid, individual action. It was an action taken with the available benefit of time, counsel, consultation, and expertise. Yet it was as poorly considered as the conversation itself. It was as poorly wrought as Duke Lacrosse, and as political as the "Hands up! Don't shoot!" lie the Chair of the BOS previously propagated. The action . . . the suspension . . . was premature, amateurish and served virtually no positive purpose.

Predictably the suspension gained LSU no positive coverage whatsoever. Quite the contrary. Dicky V, Jay Bilas, Jay Williams, and a litany of others now use Wade's suspension as an admission of guilt by the school. Predictably they cite the FKing "admission" as reason to FKing sully the school, its students, its fans, and its FKing right to compete. The suspension was a FKing stupid decision, rendered by FKing incompetent FKing imbeciles. It is a FKing travesty, and an FKing stain on the institution.

The FKing actions in this case leave us in a situation where now if we lose Wade as a coach, no one of any capacity will remotely consider taking his place. No one. It will do to LSU basketball what the death penalty did to SMU football. You can FKing bank it. The difference being in this case, death will have come by virtue of a self-inflicted FKing wound.

This post was edited on 3/25/19 at 3:38 am