Washington State head coach Ken Bone held his weekly Tuesday conference call this morning, and the discussion centered on suspended point guard Reggie Moore. The only real revelation coming from Bone was that Moore is currently not practicing with the team, and is suspended from all basketball activities indefinitely. He did not, however, rule out the possibility of Moore playing this weekend.
Vince Grippi had the news and notes from the conference call.
Bone said he and Moore should talk today concerning the indefinite aspect of the suspension and when it might end. There was no chance yesterday as after practice Bone had to race out to catch a plane out of town. To reiterate, the suspension is related to the search of Moore's dorm room in early December and the alleged recovery of marijuana and used paraphernalia that led to charges being filed Jan. 4. Asked what might have changed, leading to Saturday's decision, Bone said nothing.
So there you have it. Nothing has changed from Dec. 12 until now, though Bone chose to suspend him indefinitely shortly before Sunday's game against Stanford. The timing still doesn't add up and it's hard to believe that nothing has changed or that Bone didn't come up with new information while gathering facts. Of course, I wouldn't expect him to say anything different, either.
Why do I think the timing is odd? You don't normally see legal troubles span multiple news cycles. Typically, news of an arrest breaks, a player is suspended and the suspension ends quietly at a later date. The team takes the brunt of the publicity all at once and it's done. In this case, the news of Moore's citation broke, then was basically forgotten shortly thereafter. Although the suspension was quietly announced an hour before tip-off in Palo Alto, it was part of a separate news cycle, one that continued to roll with Tuesday's press conference. It's odd in a public relations sense.
For now, everything is in limbo with regards to Moore. He may or may not play this week, but we probably won't know right up until WSU takes the court on Thursday.
Video from the conference call after the jump.