{"id":7109,"date":"2014-10-06T19:24:50","date_gmt":"2014-10-06T23:24:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=7109"},"modified":"2014-10-07T07:44:45","modified_gmt":"2014-10-07T11:44:45","slug":"andre-nation-suspended-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=7109","title":{"rendered":"Andre Nation Suspended. Again."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Nation<\/a>For a guy who makes pretty good decisions on the basketball court, Andre Nation seems to make some bad ones off it. Nation was suspended indefinitely from the JMU basketball team today. Because of course he was. Along with Nation, sophomore forward Tom Vodanovich was also suspended indefinitely. The two players reportedly got into a fight at Vodanovich’s residence Saturday night. The police were called, Vodanovich was hospitalized with facial injuries, and Nation was arrested. The DNR’s Nick Sunderland is reporting<\/a> that Nation was charged with public swearing\/intoxication, disorderly conduct, and assault. Vodanovich was charged with public swearing\/intoxication, disorderly conduct, and underage possession. To be clear, this was a dumb move by both guys. Nation’s suspension will draw way more attention though. That’s\u00a0the price he pays for being the star of the team and for this not being his first off the court issue during his time at JMU.<\/p>\n

Depending on whether you count last season’s voluntary leave of absence (or however JMU phrased it), this is either Nation’s third or fourth suspension. Regardless, it puts him one strike closer to the apparently infinite number required to be permanently kicked off the team. Go ahead and assume all the normal caveats apply here; “this doesn’t mean\u00a0he’s\u00a0a bad person”, “college kids do dumb stuff”, “we don’t know the whole story”, etc. The fact is that this is more than a trend. It’s a pattern. As a JMU hoops fan, hearing the news that Nation was suspended, is sort of like a football player take his first hit in training camp. It’s really just a sign that the season is almost upon us.<\/p>\n

We wish Andre well and hope this is the last time we’re discussing his off the court issues, but we’d be lying if we said we’re confident it will be. If history is any indicator, it’s really more a question of “when”, not “if” when discussing Nation doing something to jeopardize his status with the basketball team. And that’s incredibly sad because he’s a heck of a basketball player, who we love to cheer for. Again, we’re not saying he’s a bad guy. But he’s certainly not dependable, and has caused a number of distractions for the program. The only real question now, is how much rope is Brady going to give him?<\/p>\n