WBRZ is reporting LSU’s head basketball coach has been suspended.
The Advocate published a joint statement between LSU President and Chancellor F. King Alexander and athletic director Joe Alleva.
Click HERE to read the statement.
BATON ROUGE (KATC) — Two days after three men were sentenced to jail time for college basketball’s play-for-pay scandal, LSU’s Will Wade is facing new allegations that he paid players to come to LSU.
Yahoo Sports reporting Thursday that the FBI has a wiretap of Wade discussing payment for Tigers’ freshman Jevonte Smart with Christian Dawkins, a man who was sentenced 6-months Tuesday for his role in the scheme.
In this wiretap, Wade allegedly expresses frustration with being unable to land Smart, who was a top-50 prospect of Scotlandville High School in Baton Rouge.
“I was thinking last night on this Smart thing,” Wade said. “I’ll be honest with you, I’m [expletive] tired of dealing with the thing. Like I’m just [expletive] sick of dealing with the [expletive]. Like, this should not be that [expletive] complicated.”
According to Yahoo’s report, Wade alleges that Smart’s handler played hard-ball, and wanted a larger chunk of money. Wade and Dawkins allegedly joked that Smart would make more than the “rookie minimum.” In the NBA that’s a value worth more than $800K.
“The problem was, I know why he didn’t take it now, it was [expletive] tilted toward the family a little bit,” Wade added. “It was tilted toward taking care of the mom, taking care of the kid. Like it was tilted towards that. Now I know for a fact he didn’t explain everything to the mom. I know now, he didn’t get enough of the piece of the pie in the deal.”
“It was a [expletive] hell of a [expletive] offer,” he continued. “Hell of an offer…. Especially for a kid who is going to be a two- or three-year kid.”
This is the second such wiretap conversation that has been reported on. In October, prosecutors tried to introduce evidence into the federal basketball corruption trial that had Wade talking to Dawkins about a European prospect Balsa Koprivica who is a Florida State commit.
Earlier this week Yahoo reported that both Wade and Arizona basketball coach Sean Miller will be subpoenaed for the April 22 federal basketball corruption trial.
