STORRS Conn. (AP) -Connecticut guard Doug Wiggins has been reinstated to the team, while starting guard Jerome Dyson remains suspended indefinitely, coach Jim Calhoun said Friday.
The 20-year-old sophomores were suspended on Jan. 24, the day after campus police say they found them in a car in a parking lot with a bottle of vodka and a bottle of cognac.
Both were cited for possession of alcohol by a minor. Wiggins also was charged with operating a motor vehicle with a suspended license. He is due in court Monday to face that charge.
Campus police said they also found a small amount of marijuana near the car, but neither player was charged with any drug violation.
As part of the school’s policy, both were given drug tests. Those results have not been made public, but several published reports say Dyson tested positive for a second time in his UConn career and was automatically suspended for 30 days.
“I’ve seen people put in numerical numbers,” Calhoun said. “As far as I’m concerned, he’s indefinitely suspended.”
Under the policy, laid out in the student-athlete handbook, athletes who test positive for street drugs twice during their career, “will not be allowed to participate in practice or competition for a period of 30 to 60 days. At the end of this period, the student-athlete will be retested. If this test is negative, the individual may be reinstated for both practice and competition.”
Both players missed Connecticut’s wins over Indiana and Louisville, part of a four-game Husky winning streak.
Wiggins practiced Thursday and Friday and will be on he bench when the Huskies (15-5, 5-3 Big East) play No. 18 Pittsburgh (17-4, 5-3) on Saturday, Calhoun said. That doesn’t mean he will play.
“He will dress and I’ll go from there,” Calhoun said. “Basically, it will be how I sleep on it. I’ve been trying to decide over the last couple of days, and haven’t come up with a decision.”
Both players have apologized to their teammates, and are trying to move forward, said guard A.J. Price, who missed the entire 2005-06 season at UConn after being suspended for his role in the theft of some laptop computers.
“That’s one of the first things that I told (Jerome), that it would all pass over with time,” Price said. “You just have to give it time, keep your nose clean and just keep being positive and everything else will just take care of itself.”
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