LSU Still Lists Just Four Players on Eve of First Exhibition Game

Will Wade will make his official return to the bench as the LSU men’s basketball coach Thursday night, when the Tigers travel to McNeese State for a preseason exhibition.  

But just one day before tip-off, LSU doesn’t even have enough players listed on its roster to fill out its starting five.

Currently, LSU lists four players: Austin Nunez, Abdi Bashir Jr., Mouhamed Dioubate, and Divine Ugochukwu. Last month, Wade said he has assembled what he’s called a full roster, and named and spoke about multiple players during a press conference last month beyond the four listed players. But he’s declined to release the full list.

 An LSU spokesperson did not respond to an FOS inquiry for a list of available players for Thursday’s exhibition.

“It’ll be a really, really tough game, especially depending on how our roster looks when we show up that day,” Wade said in September. “No matter how our roster looks—we got five guys, we’re going to play the game. If we get beat, and we go up there and play the game, we’re gonna play the game. We said we were gonna be there, we’re gonna be there. We’re not gonna chicken out because we don’t have everybody, whatever.”

In addition to the four on the roster, there are nine other players who have either said on social media that they’ll play for LSU this year or been reported to have deals to play. (A fourteenth player, Brazil’s Marcio Santos, is no longer with the program.) Wade says 15 in total have signed revenue-sharing and NIL deals, have enrolled as students at LSU, and have been practicing with the team all September. 

During the September presser, Wade spoke about Donovan Dent and Skyy Clark, two former UCLA Bruins who joined one of many lawsuits challenging the implementation of the NCAA’s “age-based” eligibility policy. He also mentioned three international players, Michael Ruzic (Croatia), Saliou Niang (Senegal) and Brice Dessert (France).

There are three other players reported to be on the team: Gilad Levy of Israel, transfer Luke Stansbury, and incoming freshman Jordan Bender. Both Bender and Stansbury have posted about being on LSU’s roster on social media. (Levy’s social media, however, does not mention LSU.)

As for why those players aren’t listed, Wade said, “it’s in the best interest of a couple of the players for some different reasons.” But he wouldn’t elaborate.

Wade didn’t name another player, RJ Luis Jr., but suggested that he was part of the team. Luis won an injunction to return to college basketball after going through the NBA Draft process and signing two NBA contracts, but his legal status may remain up in the air after LSU’s attempt to bring two players back from NFL camps led to the SEC passing new rules about athletes who played in major U.S. professional leagues.

Ultimately, it’s still unclear who will step onto the hardwood for LSU on Thursday night in Lake Charles. But Wade said the program will keep its promise to his former team, particularly given the financial considerations for the Cowboys. While the game contract does not award McNeese a specific fee, the program will maintain in-game revenues like ticket sales.

“They’ve sold it out,” Wade said. “The money’s going to go back to McNeese for their NIL, so they can continue to keep winning and keep going. And so that’s what we agreed to do and that’s what we’re gonna do.”