The circus in Birmingham is still up and running.
Tuesday, the SEC’s filing versus LSU continued a pointless legal back and forth that is making no progress and lining lawyers’ pockets across two states.
The conference’s position is not that LSU has broken rules. It’s that LSU might, not has, but might, fight a potential expulsion. LSU responded that an expulsion isn’t warranted.
The horror.
Don’t believe me. Just read for yourself.
“What Defendants (LSU) do not say in their brief—much less through any sworn affidavit or declaration—is that they will refrain from interfering with the SEC’s exercise of its undisputed right to terminate LSU’s membership from the Conference. Indeed, they suggest the opposite, insisting that termination ‘is not—and was never—warranted.’”
SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey determined somewhere along the line that pen to paper on a professional deal was the tipping point. LSU explored fifth-year options, three that signed NFL and NBA deals, and Sankey took aim.
Dae’Quan Wright and Xzavian Harris never played for LSU. RJ Luis hasn’t, either.
The SEC pointed out Luis’s situation specifically.
“LSU has openly recruited former NBA player RJ Luis Jr., has allowed him to practice with the LSU men’s basketball team, and has refused to publicly and definitively state that he will not be included on LSU’s basketball roster, which is not due for several weeks.”
So, LSU hasn’t broken any rules. They just won’t tell the league they promise not to. Not even a pinky swear.
Let me be clear. I don’t see any case for Luis to be eligible. In my eyes, he willingly gave up his college eligibility two years ago. When he decided to enter the NBA Draft after a Big East Player of the Year campaign at St. John’s, he burned his college NIL boat upon arrival with the Jazz.
That’s how I see it.
I felt the same way about Charles Bediako in Tuscaloosa. It’s a very obvious apples-to-apples comparison. But Bediako and Luis are far from the only athletes who have filed suits to regain or continue college eligibility.
On Wednesday, CJ Gunn won a TRO in the state of Missouri to play for the Tigers after signing a professional contract with the Canadian Elite Basketball League and playing three weeks for the Calgary Surge.
Not once has another conference sued for lack of institutional control or threatened removal of a member institution over all this nonsense.
The SEC legal team continued.
“This case addresses a broader dispute: Defendants’ complete lack of institutional control over LSU’s athletic programs, their ongoing defiance of the Conference’s Professionalism Rules, and the very real threat—reiterated in Defendants’ briefing—that defendants will interfere with any effort to terminate LSU’s membership in the Conference.”
Complete lack of institutional control? LSU didn’t roster the football players. LSU basketball coach Will Wade said Tuesday that LSU would follow the SEC protocols with Luis and had not rostered him.
Luis didn’t travel last week with the team for an exhibition game at McNeese.
Again, this has nothing to do with wrong committed, just the exploration of roster building.
Coaches have their livelihoods on the line. The last six years have been an eligibility extravaganza, and exploring those options has quite literally been part of the job. Wade and LSU head football coach Lane Kiffin aren’t alone in doing so.
Texas’ Steve Sarkesian did it and Missouri’s Eli Drinkwitz said he would follow suit. Basketball and baseball coaches all over the country have done it.
Irrational actors are littered all over this circus of a situation. Many of them, though unnecessary, are benign in nature.
LSU should have stood down a little bit more quickly. In my opinion, attorney Tony Clayton didn’t need to grab a mic and taunt Sankey with his line about “a cold cup of gumbo”. That was performative and ridiculous.
Sankey found a situation and group of people he decided he was going to pursue most aggressively. Perhaps he thinks a flood of NFL training camp and NBA G-League athletes are going to take the SEC over for years to come, and he’s the only man that can do something about it. Perhaps he just can’t stand Kiffin, Wade, Clayton, Governor Jeff Landry and Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill. He can get in line at that counter.
It’s probably somewhere in the middle.
Ultimately, LSU is not going to roster Luis. Wade came to that decision that he announced Tuesday during a Zoom call with reporters. That’s the institutional control the SEC suggests LSU lacks.
Hopefully, the league publicly announces its satisfaction, and everyone can move forward.
LSU may win 25 basketball games this year or 12. The talented Luis would be worth a couple of victories. He’s not worth this sideshow of a legal battle. Wade himself said if the eligibility issues don’t work out, he’ll just do things more traditionally next year. The top high school combo guard in next year’s class has already committed to LSU.
He decided to do things differently this year. The SEC included LSU’s pursuit of international professionals in the filing.
“LSU has also recruited international, professional basketball players whose eligibility remains in question. LSU’s head men’s basketball coach has been unapologetic about it. ‘This is who we are. This is what we’re doing. This is the path we charted. We’re going to go down it, and that’s fine.’”
The SEC’s lawyers’ inclusion of that quote, as if to suggest it’s salacious in nature, is disingenuous at best and completely misguided at worst.
Again, dozens of former European former professionals have played collegiately over the last three seasons. Many more are awaiting eligibility rulings, and many have gotten approval in recent weeks.
Michael Ruzic at LSU has been cleared. He played multiple professional seasons. This is hardly some grand scheme cooked up in Baton Rouge.
It’s hard to make a reasonable case that Wade is completely out of bounds here. He was five years ago. The situations aren’t related.
The SEC’s language in this case is the most egregious reaction/overreaction among them all.
Generations of fans of SEC programs have LSU woven through decades of memories, hate the Tigers or love them. Sankey’s time as the league’s commissioner will come and go. LSU’s spot in the league will not.
Asked what he’d need to see from LSU to feel better about its standing with the league, Sankey told ESPN’s Alex Scarborough, “I’d like to not be in court, but as I said, those legal filings speak for themselves.”
Then dismiss the case.
Gumbo reheats well on the stovetop. I’ll grab a bowl. Let’s move on.
