re: Who is to blame for the current state of the basketball program?

Marty Blazer

Don't know that name? He's the genesis of the entire FBI investigation.

He was a rinky-dink "financial advisor" in Pittsburgh who was defrauding professional and prospective professional athletes. Those clients busted him, which led to an FBI investigation. No one knows Marty Blazer and no one would really give a shite about him. But he knew the Southern District of NY US attorney's office are attention whores. They LOVE salacious cases. So, to save himself, Blazer said he had information that prospective college recruits were being paid all over the country. How did he know that? He testified, at trial, HE paid football players at Penn St., Alabama, Michigan, Notre Dame (uh oh Brian Kelly) to choose him as their financial advisor upon going pro. He gave up the name of Christian Dawkins and others.

The case against Blazer was pretty straight forward. But who cares about that when the US attorney's office can make big headlines in prosecuting college basketball recruiting. Crimes so "heinous" that those eventually found guilty got little to no jail time.

For the first time in the history of law enforcement the DOJ and FBI felt wasting taxpayer dollars and resources on investigating college basketball recruiting was "necessary". There was rampant cheating before Wade (actually it was much worse) and there will be rampant cheating after. That is a REQUIREMENT to recruit the top basketball talent in the nation (unless, I guess you choose to live in a world of naïve make-believe). Unfortunately, Wade was doing nothing the other HC's weren't doing. He just happened to be talking to the wrong guy at the wrong time in history. He'll pay a price. LSU will pay a price. LSU fans will pay a price because the most entertaining era of basketball in 30 years is now over. But the "cheating" in college basketball will go on

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Wade owns all of it, the good and the bad.

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. This is where I am at on all this. Yes he brought excitement back and he should get credit for that. He also destroyed the great things he did by not covering his tracks at all. I am really curious to know why he was so blatant in his cheating. There are numerous ways he could have paid the ppl he did and not leave a trail but he didn’t, why?

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We gonna gloss over him still employing verge? You can’t cleanup stuff if you let title ix allegations hangout.

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. I think everyone wants the answer to this. How in the hell does Verge still have a job? I don’t think Wokeism applies here I think it is something else because it makes zero sense how he is still employed

Likely has his job based on his connections and he had two kids that are good at football. Of course Verge didn’t deliver on the less talented one and the other one is committed to auburn also.

Scott has a flaw in that he isn’t a consistent clean up man and letting verge stay is a bad look.

shite I’d accept firing wade a lot more if verge was gone bc at least then we are being serious about no shennigans allowed.

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Scott Woodward inherited this fiasco and honestly was hired to clean up the entire Athletic Department. Do not think that the big money Woodward is spending did not come with instructions for what Woodward was expected to do at LSU. LSU has spent 3 million to get rid of Maineri and several million more to hire Jay Johnson and his staff. LSU spent 2 1/2 million to hire Kim Mulkey after firing her predecessor. LSU spent 26 1/2 million to fire Ed Orgeron and his staff and then spent 100 million to hire Brian Kelly and millions more to hire Kelly’s Staff. Now Will Wade is fired and has to be replaced. Throw in 26 million to rebuild the Football Dressing Room and LSU is spending tons of money to get things going in the right direction. Aleva presided over an Athletic Department which was full of do-nothings and rats and most of them were fired as well including the Strength and Conditioning Staff and most of the Support Staff. Woodward inherited a disaster and is doing a good job fixing what he needs to fix. Blame Aleva for the overall situation and Will Wade for the Basketball screw ups.

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This.

Scott is a personal friend of and worked for LSU Chancellor, and now CEO of the NCAA, Mark Emmert. This has been in the work for quite some time. Do you think LSU and Scott would let a 100 million dollar contract for a head FB coach if they knew they would lose post season, and tv money? Me either.

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We gonna gloss over him still employing verge? You can’t cleanup stuff if you let title ix allegations hangout.

. I think everyone wants the answer to this. How in the hell does Verge still have a job? I don’t think Wokeism applies here I think it is something else because it makes zero sense how he is still employed

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Gotta be some bodies that only he is privy to. Makes no sense otherwise.


"Obviously, you know nothing about how Wade recruits players. Everyone is offering money to these kids. Wade lays out how they fit in the program and what success they can expect in his system.. It’s how he landed Eason Miller and Pinson this last offseason. He was starting to get more 5 stars per year because he was able to show guys he recruited in the NBA." -BootupAstro
Make sense to you?

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Should have stayed with his gut and fired WW years ago when this surfaced. Probably be free and clear by now. Probation during covid would not have been that bad.

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Wade would have sued us for wrongful termination with the facts (or lack thereof) we had then, and we'd very well still be in an open litigation with all sorts of pre-trial discovery we would have wanted to part of. The only way firing him back then could have worked out is if we fired him without cause and paid him his full buyout, and that, too, may have made us look bad in the eyes of the NCAA. The unfortunately reality is Wade put our program in this position. Sure, winning and signing good classes was fun, but for 1 sweet 16 run history is probably going to prove he cause more harm than good to the program.

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What do you get out of putting blame on someone

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jeez, man. Blame = accountability and punishment.

Are we just supposed to wave our hands and absolve Wade, because we don't want to "place blame on someone?"

Wade screwed up. He's to blame. He must be punished for his actions. And LSU will be punished as well, since he was a university employee.