The person some of y’ll wanted as the AD at Virginia, Boo Corrigan, who hired Will Wade, who some of y’all wanted last year to be our new basketball coach, is back in the market for a basketball coach, because Wade is slithering his way back into the swamp as LSU.
“The opportunity to return to Baton Rouge and lead the LSU Tigers once again is one I simply could not turn down,” Wade said in a statement on Thursday, on his way out of town.
“LSU is a place where we have unfinished business, and the chance to reunite with this administration and fanbase was a calling I had to answer,” Wade said.
ICYMI
The “unfinished business” starts with a “strong-arm offer” that got Wade in trouble with the NCAA cops in 2019, after an FBI wiretap from 2017 caught him musing out loud about money that he’d offered a recruit.
That was illegal back then, but is perfectly legal, even encouraged, now.
Before that would be the case, LSU fired Wade in 2022; he was 105-51 in five seasons there.
The guy LSU hired to replace him, Matt McMahon, was 60-70 in his four seasons at the school, going 3-15 in the SEC in each of the past two.
LSU will owe McMahon an $8 million buyout, and will be on the hook for Wade’s $5 million buyout from his NC State contract.
At least they turn a slight profit on athletics down there at LSU – a reported $3.8 million profit in 2024-2025.
That’s all because of football, though, literally – a look at the books shows that football turned a $66.8 million profit last year, a function of the SEC’s massive TV deal.
Men’s basketball turned a, gulp, $2.5 million profit last year.
The school owes, in addition to the $13 million to get rid of McMahon and replace him with Wade, $54 million to the failed hire of Brian Kelly in football.
LSU replaced Kelly with Lane Kiffin, hired on a seven-year, $91 million, fully-guaranteed deal that is bound to end with Kiffin getting pink-slipped.
And now the folks down there get to pass the hat around again to pay Mr. Strong-Ass Offer.
Share
Chris Graham
