The program has avoided controversial hires since the Kelvin Sampson debacle.
Indiana is an interesting program, for a few reasons.
For one, the history. It’s obvious in Assembly Hall from the banners to the photographs to the overall age and vibe of the building. That’s pretty self-evident.
What might be less widely known is the programs approach to Following The Rules.
It’s been ingrained in the fabric of Bloomington since the days of Bob Knight. The legendary coach did a lot of things during his time at Indiana, but one thing he avoided at all costs was breaking any sort of NCAA recruiting or compliance rule.
In one pretty famous instance, Steve Alford posed for a photo in a sorority calendar that was sold to raise money for charity. That broke NCAA rules at the time and Alford was suspended for the team’s game against Kentucky.
When Alford, who didn’t know he wasn’t even meant to make the road trip with the team, ended up on the bus to the airport, Knight found him as he exited and stopped him from getting on the flight.
Alford ended up being made to walk back to Bloomington from the airport.
Then there’s what happened when the program took a chance on someone who had a history of breaking NCAA rules. A lot went into the Kelvin Sampson tenure in Bloomington, but it ended with penalties that set the program back multiple years.
That all brings us back to Will Wade.
It wasn’t long ago at all that Wade looked like one of the very best up and coming coaches in the sport. He made the jump from VCU to LSU while he was still in his 30s and turned the Tigers into a tournament staple and an SEC championship program during his time in Baton Rogue.
Then, well, he was caught on an FBI wiretap talking about making an “offer” to a recruit. One big investigation later and an NCAA Notice of Allegations on LSU’s doorstep and Wade was fired.
He turned up a year later as the new coach at McNeese, where he was quickly hit with a 10-game suspension and 2-year show-cause penalty that’s set to expire this offseason.
So, let’s revisit the point here. Would Indiana consider Will Wade? Should it? Well.
Wade’s resume alone makes him a candidate Indiana oughta consider. It’s easy to see him finding success in Bloomington given the resources that are available to the head coach.
There’s a lot to consider here. It’s been a long, long time since the program was successful on a consistent basis and we’re approaching ten years since the Hoosiers’ last Big Ten title. That’s a lot of time for frustration to get pent up from the fanbase to the administration and just as much time for some soul-searching.
Many of the people whose opinion matters are the same ones who saw what happened to the program in the wake of the Sampson era. That fear and scorn for those who break NCAA rules will always exist at some level.
But… what Wade allegedly did was pay players. Well, everyone’s doing that right about now. It’s all legal through NIL and pretty much mandatory to remain competitive at the highest levels of college basketball.
Indiana is an athletics department and program that has fully embraced NIL and leveraged it to its benefit for football and men’s basketball, with the fruits of this past offseason ultimately proving ill-fated in the latter case but the capability to acquire them remaining.
What made Wade something of an untouchable in college basketball wasn’t some great moral failing or one the program will answer for in the court of broad public opinion. He allegedly did something that coaches have done for countless years in college basketball and is now pretty open and, again, legal.
If all of this happened ten years ago? Indiana absolutely wouldn’t consider Wade, at all.
Now? Things could be a bit different.