Washington State point guard Reggie Moore is back with the team and will play Thursday against the Arizona State Sun Devils. Moore was suspended indefinitely after head coach Ken Bone gathered enough information to determine a punishment ahead of last Saturday's game against the Stanford Cardinal. While suspended, Moore did not participate in team activities, though he was back at practice on Tuesday.
The Spokesman-Review's Vince Grippi had the news Wednesday afternoon.
Moore will return to the court Thursday night against Arizona State. Moore, who was indefinitely suspended prior to last Saturday's Stanford game, did not practice Monday but was with the starting group in team drills Tuesday and Wednesday
Bone said on his Tuesday conference call that he still needed to sit down with Moore to talk everything over, and it appears he did so shortly after meeting with the media. One game missed, a couple days away from the team and all is back to normal again.
I think we all figured the suspension wouldn't carry on too long, considering the nature of the crime Moore was cited for. On a scale of one to running a grow operation, the crime Moore was cited for ranks somewhere on the low-end of the scale.
All things considered, Bone handled the situation well. During his conference call, he said he's never dealt with a situation like this -- a player receiving a drug citation after their unoccupied room was searched -- and it took him time to figure out what to do with it all.
It's important to remember coaches at the high school and college level are molders of men. It's a role that's as important, if not more important, than the actual coaching. Parents trust their kids to Bone and his staff, expecting they'll be like father figures at school. It sounds cheesy, it sounds cliche, but it's true.
If Bone was comfortable enough to reinstate him, he must've felt Moore learned a lesson from all of this. For Moore's sake, I hope he did and is better in the future because of it.