JACKSONVILLE – With LSU men’s basketball coach Will Wade suspended indefinitely, Tigers players are using the situation to come together as a team. “All season we’ve been saying, ‘We are a family. We are going to grow together. Keep pushing through everything, all the adversity that’s been thrown at us,’" LSU sophomore guard Tremont Waters said Wednesday. “We know we have to come together as a family even more now because we don’t have our head coach." Wade was suspended before the final regular-season game against Vanderbilt and then missed the SEC tournament where the Tigers lost to Florida in the quarterfinals. Wade was allegedly caught on FBI wiretap discussing an offer for then-recruit Javonte Smart, who plays for LSU and has been cleared to play in Thursday’s game against 14th-seeded Yale. The third-seeded Tigers put trust in the bonding experience. “There's been a lot of outside stuff throughout the year and we've done a great job of keeping that stuff outside once we step on the court, and I think our record shows that,” junior guard Skylar Mays said. “We should be able to continue to do that, and me and Tremont as leaders, we trust all these guys, and we've developed a great bond over the year, and we expect that bond to keep us together on the court.” REGIONAL BREAKDOWNS: East | Midwest | South | West SLIPPER FITS:The team that is primed for Cinderella run in NCAA tournament NCAA TOURNAMENT BRACKET:See all 68 March Madness teams PRINTABLE BRACKET:Get yours to fill out here Assistant Tony Benford was named interim head coach, and he has tried to empower the team and focus on basketball. “First of all, we have a quality group – what I mean, a group of character kids, and they've really bought in,” Benford said. “They've really taken ownership of their team. They've had to unfortunately go through a lot of adversity this year.” Losing Wade wasn’t the only adversity. Before the season, LSU junior forward Wayde Sims was shot and killed at a party in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. “That really made these guys a tighter knit group, brought them closer together, more trust and respect for one another, and it made easier for us to coach them,” Benford said. “They dedicated the season to Wayde Sims. That's the reason we were able to win in overtime. Had six overtime games in the league and we were 5-1 in those games because of the closeness of this group.” It also helps that Benford has head coaching experience after five years at North Texas. Benford said assistant Greg Heiar is ready to be a head coach and Bill Armstrong is a veteran SEC basketball staffer. “We talk about narrowing our focus,” Benford said. “We can't control the outside noise and what's going on. All we can control is our locker room and our huddle, and the players, they've taken ownership of the locker room. They're holding everyone accountable, their teammates accountable, too. So that's huge when you can narrow your focus. Kind of have to have tunnel vision and put blinders on. “But they're aware of what's going on on the outside, but inside when we walk in those doors, hey, it's about preparing for -- for instance, Yale. We've got to prepare.”<doc-sep>Photo : Sean Gardner ( Getty Images ) LSU suspended coach Will Wade on Friday in the wake of a report from Yahoo Sports that revealed Wade was caught on a wiretap speaking about making payments to current freshman guard Javonte Smart. In a phone conversation with Christian Dawkins—who was recently sentenced to six months in prison for wire fraud and wire fraud conspiracy—the coach talked about the frustration of a third party not taking a strong offer to get Smart to commit to LSU. This was the portion of the conversation the report chose to highlight: “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.”﻿ [...] “Dude,” Wade continued to Dawkins, referring to the third party involved in the recruitment, “I went to him with a [expletive] strong-ass offer about a month ago. [Expletive] strong. “The problem was, I know why he didn’t take it now, it was [expletive] tilted toward the family a little bit,” Wade continued. “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.” Dawkins responded by saying, “Hmmmm.” “It was a [expletive] hell of a [expletive] offer,” Wade continued. “Hell of an offer.” “OK,” Dawkins said. “Especially for a kid who is going to be a two- or three-year kid,” Wade said. Nothing in that conversation mentioned anything about the offer’s specifics, or whether the offer was against any kind of NCAA policy. All that’s known from the transcript is that an offer existed. Nonetheless, LSU decided to take proactive steps to protect the program from the NCAA’s wildly inept hammer of justice and removed Wade from the program indefinitely. Advertisement In a statement to NOLA.com, the coach expressed his understanding of why the school did what it had to do, but also tried to maintain an image of innocence on his part saying, “would ask everyone to withhold their judgment until the record is complete.” Any kind of judgment would most likely come not from the fact that he potentially had a hand in paying a player, but the fact that he vehemently denied having “done any business of any kind” with Dawkins back in October—which is also probably why LSU was quick with the suspension trigger. Perhaps the most annoying comment about this situation came from SEC president Greg Sankey who said in a statement, “I support the action of LSU in its suspension of head men’s basketball coach Will Wade. The information in recent news reports is very disturbing, if true.” Calling the act of player maybe receiving money for his basketball-playing abilities “disturbing” is complete and utter nonsense that’s a result of the posturing the NCAA’s absurd regulations force on these assholes. The only reason this whole case happened in the first place is because the draconian policies of the association creates a system where the players miss out on the compensation they’re owed so that those at the top can receive big salaries. There really wouldn’t be a fraud case otherwise. What makes the “disturbing” characterization even more bothersome is that when you look at the context of the transcripts, this topic only came up over the phone because too much of “the pie” Smart and his mother for the middle man’s liking. Above all else, the only information that was revealed in the reports was that something was vaguely offered, which has to make you wonder what other inconsequential events in Sankey’s life meet the very low threshold of what qualifies as “disturbing.” Because of all of that, a harmless action is no longer a victimless “crime.” A top-10 team has been screwed out of having their coach in arguably the most important point of the season. The Tigers now have to navigate the conference tournament, and the national tournament without the guy who helped take them to those heights in the first place—though the drive to win a title might be muted by the fact that there’s a more-than-likely chance that any titles won from here on out gets stripped away. The team also might have to go through these games without Smart, a starter, as I doubt LSU will only be sitting him for Saturday’s game against Vanderbilt.<doc-sep>JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Tony Benford is 55 and has been involved in college basketball for three decades, first as a player at Texas Tech, then as a typically itinerant assistant coach — New Mexico and Nebraska, Arizona State and Marquette, a basketball in one hand and a suitcase in the other. Friday, he took to a dais here to answer questions about the LSU team he now finds himself coaching — about the SEC, which the Tigers won; about Maryland, the Tigers’ opponent in the second round of the NCAA tournament Saturday; about the personnel the Tigers have.<doc-sep>
Lousiana State University head men's basketball coach Will Wade has been suspended indefinitely amid concerns about whether his recruiting tactics violated NCAA rules, the school announced Friday. LSU Chancellor F. King Alexander and athletic director Joe Alleva said in a joint statement Friday that the school has suspended Wade "until such time as we can ensure full compliance with the NCAA, as well as institutional policies and standards." They have appointed assistant Tony Benford as interim head coach. Yahoo! Sports reported Thursday that Wade was recorded by the FBI discussing with middleman Christian Dawkins about a "hell of an offer" for a then-recruit believed to be LSU freshman guard Javonte Smart. TWO LSU FOOTBALL PLAYERS INVOLVED IN FATAL SHOOTING WERE BEING ROBBED, POLICE SAY "Recent media reports regarding coach Will Wade are without question concerning to all of us," Alexander and Alleva's joint statement said. "As such, we and university officials have taken deliberate and purposeful steps to fairly assess and adequately address this situation. ... We are closely coordinating with the NCAA with every step. They have our full cooperation and we will continue to report to them all facts and information on this matter." The middleman Dawkins is one of several people convicted in October of conspiracy to commit wire fraud for funneling illegal payments to families of recruits to Louisville, Kansas and North Carolina State. In the Yahoo! report, Wade is described expressing his frustration with an unidentified third party handling the recruitment of player referred to only as "Smart." 9 LSU FRATERNITY MEMBERS ARRESTED FOR SHOCKING HAZING INCIDENTS Wade is quoted on a transcript of the call saying that he made a strong offer that was "tilted toward taking care of" the player and his mother, but that the third party who received the offer was unsatisfied with his "piece of the pie." The report also stated that it was not clear if the offer Wade discusses would violate NCAA rules, or if the player and his family knew of, or accepted, the offer, of which there were no specific details. "I cannot comment at this time on various media reports, except to say that they do not begin to tell the full story," Wade wrote in a statement to the New Orleans Times-Picayune. "I understand the University had to take action before all the facts are in, but I would ask everyone to withhold their judgment until the record is complete." CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP LSU's 25 regular season victories are tied second most in program history with the 2000 and 2009 teams and behind only the 1981 Final Four team that won a school-record 27 regular-season games. The 1981 team went on to finish the postseason with an LSU-record 31 victories. The Associated Press contributed to this report.