Will Wade and LSU: Why was the coach fired in 2022?

· Yahoo Sports

LSU basketball aims to bring Will Wade back to Baton Rouge. Wade, currently the head coach of NC State, led LSU from 2017-22. According to reports, Wade's hire at LSU could be imminent.

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For those unfamiliar with the saga, Wade found plenty of success at LSU. He posted four-straight winning seasons and brought the Tigers to the Sweet 16 in 2019. However, Wade's time in Baton Rouge was marred by recruiting scandals, eventually leading to his firing in 2022.

LSU's NCAA trouble wasn't new in 2022. The university had been dealing with recruiting allegations across the football and basketball programs for the better part of five years. In 2022, LSU football self-issued a bowl ban.

Still, the NCAA turned up the heat on LSU basketball and delivered the notice of allegations in March of 2022. The NCAA hit Wade with five Level I violations.

"Will Wade, head men's basketball coach, violated the principles of ethical conduct and provided impermissible cash payments to the former fiancée of a student-athlete in order to buy her silence regarding prior and current impermissible inducements to student-athletes or prospective student-athletes," wrote the NCAA in the NOA.

Wade's scandal at LSU was one of the last major recruiting scandals to carry over from the pre-NIL era. By 2022, NIL was already in full force. Some questioned if LSU should have even cooperated. The NCAA was losing power -- was it really going to hit LSU hard?

In a world where it's now legal and encouraged to pay players, there's little moral scrutiny to be done over Wade's actions at LSU. Yet at the time, LSU administrators felt the move had to be made. The university was worried about a long NCAA punishment process affecting football, too. LSU threw basketball to the wolves.

This article originally appeared on LSU Wire: Will Wade and LSU: Why was the coach fired in 2022?

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