Will Wade rants against charge calls in college basketball, Vanderbilt drawing fouls

LSU men’s basketball head coach Will Wade spoke with fans for “Will Wade Unfiltered” on Thursday at Walk-Ons Sports Bistreaux in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, per The Shreveport Times.

The audience in attendance got the chance to ask Wade a few questions. And in classic Will Wade fashion, he did not disappoint. The first fan asked a question about fouls and got the LSU head coach fired up.

The fan asked, “I know you don’t like to talk about fouls, but as a fan, it is ruining the game for us. What can we do?”

“I hate to tell you, [(guard Scotty) Pippen, Jr.] at Vanderbilt is fifth in the country in fouls drawn,” Wade said, as transcribed by Erik Hall of the Lafayette Daily Advertiser. “So if you don’t like what you’ve seen, wait ’til Saturday. Vanderbilt gets fouled on 38% of their possessions on offense, so like four-out-of-10 of their possessions end in a foul. If you don’t like what you’ve seen just wait ’til Saturday, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

LSU plays Vanderbilt at 6 PM EST on Saturday on the SEC Network.

“God, I can’t say too much,” Wade said after his initial comments. “I’m going to get in trouble.” 

A few minutes later, he got really fired up in talking about what he would change about charge calls.

Will Wade’s thoughts on charge calls

“There’s a couple of the rules that I wish they would change,” Wade said. “The damn charge rule they’ve got to change. You shouldn’t be able to take a charge unless you’re on the ball. All this secondary defender charge stuff, they need to get rid of it. They need to get rid of it, and so, we’re the only sport that rewards you for that. The secondary defender shouldn’t be rewarded for that. He should have to shield or do something. He shouldn’t be able to just stand there and you run him over. They need to change that, but ain’t nobody listening to me, so they aren’t changing that anytime soon. It’s just some of the rules are built for drawing fouls, and some teams are better at taking advantage of them than others.” 

LSU was called for 22 fouls in their last game against Ole Miss (76-72 loss) The Rebels shot 31 free throws.

It’s refreshing to see that kind of honesty from a college basketball coach regarding the officiating. Like Wade mentioned, coaches can rarely say much because they’ll get in trouble.

One big thing college basketball officials have cracked down on recent years has been flopping. There are so many judgement calls in a given game of college basketball, it’s a near impossible task to please everyone.

But once again, it is refreshing to hear Wade’s honesty on things he doesn’t agree with in college basketball officiating. That kind of unfiltered honesty is rare.