The Biggest Question for LSU Men’s Basketball: Who Is on the Team?

LSU men’s basketball coach Will Wade began his Wednesday press conference with a joke. “We’ve been practicing two-on-two the past couple months,” he said, referring to the fact that the program only has four players on its official roster. He then told reporters that the Tigers have been practicing this fall with 15 players. 

But just two weeks before the team’s first exhibition game against McNeese on Oct 8., LSU is not disclosing who those players are. 

Wade declined to list his full roster during the press conference this week. After the media availability concluded, FOS requested a list of players practicing with the program. which an LSU athletics spokesperson declined to provide. As of publishing, LSU’s website still lists only four players. (Those players, all of whom are transfers, are: Austin Nunez, Abdi Bashir Jr., Mouhamed Dioubate, and Divine Ugochukwu.)

“I could release [the roster] today,” Wade said Wednesday. “But there’s some reasons why I’m not. And I’m not saying you have to agree with it. But it’s in the best interest of a couple of the players for some different reasons.” 

Wade said that “every one of them is signed,” in addition to being enrolled at LSU and practicing. He added that the program was still “working through eligibility” with three or four players, and that the program may not have its full roster by the time the Tigers take on McNeese in October; but that their full roster would be settled by the season commencement on Nov 3. 

“I know there’s been some frustration, probably, with how we’ve done this,” Wade said. “But we’re always gonna protect our kids. And there’s a reason behind this. And I’m not going to sit here and explain our reasoning behind everything, but when we recruit kids, and when we go about things with our players we always are going to protect them. And we’re always going to do what’s right by them.”

The NCAA’s rules currently require players to be deemed eligible to participate in official team practices; but the NCAA offers a 45-day grace period to participate in practices before players are certified, according to rules shared with FOS. Then, teams must submit their final rosters the day before the first regular-season game; anyone not on that roster cannot practice or compete during the season. (There can be exceptions for replacements for players who suffer season-ending injuries mid-year, however.)

Though Wade declined to list a roster, he offered to talk about almost any of the players practicing with the team. During the presser, he 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 and won an injunction to play a fifth year. He also discussed three international players, Michael Ruzic (Croatia), Saliou Niang (Senegal) and Brice Dessert (France), all of whom Wade said will bring “some much-needed height, some much-needed physicality” to the program.

Ultimately, FOS independently counted 13 current players, including the four listed on the roster, those Wade named, players whose social media confirmed they are on the team, and external recruiting reports. 

Wade also confirmed Brazilian player Marcio Santos was no longer on the team, adding, “you’d have to ask the NCAA on that.” The NCAA declined to comment on Santos’s situation, stating it does not usually comment on individual eligibility cases.

Players reported to be on the team who Wade did not mention: a fourth international player, Gilad Levy (Israel), transfer Luke Stansbury, and incoming freshman Jordan Bender. Both Bender and Stansbury have posted about being on LSU’s roster on social media; Bender announced his commitment on X, and Stansbury’s Instagram account tags LSU basketball in its bio. Levy’s social media, however, does not mention LSU. A spokesperson for The Team (formerly Wasserman), which represents Levy, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

There is one player Wade refused to name, however: former St. John’s standout RJ Luis Jr. Wade would not name Luis because, he said, “the SEC—they hold everybody’s words against them. So I want to be careful about not doing anything with that. But outside of that one, I think everybody knows who I’m talking about…”

Earlier this summer, Luis won an injunction to return to college basketball after going through the NBA Draft process and signing two NBA contracts. The NCAA’s rules would disqualify Luis from returning to college, though the NCAA has previously allowed players who signed G League contracts. The SEC has recently gone a step further, passing a rule preventing any players who were rostered on NBA or G League teams from returning to SEC programs. That rule came about in the wake of LSU football coach Lane Kiffin’s unsuccessful attempt to sign two players, Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris, who participated in NFL training camp. That also spawned a separate lawsuit filed by the SEC against LSU and threats to kick the program out of the conference.

“With him, we’re going to go through the process,” Wade said regarding Luis. “We’re gonna abide by what the SEC tells us to abide by. We’re not trying to do anything untoward towards any of that. So we’re going to go through processes and we’ll see where that ends up.”

An SEC spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. 

Wade said he understood that his roster construction—and secrecy—was “unconventional.”

“But 20 years ago, Airbnb was unconventional,” he said. “Everybody stayed in a hotel. Fifteen years ago, you rode in a taxi everywhere. Now you take Uber. Just cause it’s unconventional, doesn’t mean it’s not going to work. It may not work. If it doesn’t work, write about what an idiot I am.”