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Pressure Building On Soon-To-Be-Served Sean Miller, Will Wade

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NCAA Basketball: Washington State at Arizona
Feb 9, 2019; Tucson, AZ, USA; Arizona Wildcats head coach Sean Miller watches from the sideline during the second half against the Washington State Cougars at McKale Center.
Casey Sapio-USA TODAY Sports

On Monday it emerged that Arizona’s Sean Miller and LSU’s Will Wade will be subpoenaed to testify in the April 22nd trial about corruption in college basketball.

We aren’t nearly as familiar with Wade’s situation as we are with Miller’s but it’s not good for either coach or program.

Life will be easier if Miller is innocent of criminal charges and also NCAA violations. Depending on his situation, he’ll have four choices:

  1. Testify freely and accept the consequences.
  2. Deny everything and risk perjury if he lies.
  3. Plead the Fifth. He wouldn’t have to answer specific questions that might tend to implicate him but his career would be over as soon as he uttered the phrase. Courts have to accept that but employers don’t.
  4. Avoid the subpoena. If you can’t be served you don’t have to testify. Good luck with that though. We expect they’d serve him before the end of the season which would make it hard to hide.

Of course there is a minor Duke connection at LSU: Wade was hired by former Duke A.D. Joe Alleva so that bears watching.

The situation in Tucson is much more interesting. Arizona has been one of the premier programs in the U.S. since the mid ‘80s and Miller’s voice is supposedly on wiretaps.

What will come out? What happens when he’s asked about the alleged payments to DeAndre Ayton?

We’ll know soon. It won’t take too long to know whether he survives it either.

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