Will Wade Could Follow the Illinois Blueprint at LSU

LSU may be trying to be the next Illinois. 

In March, the Tigers re-hired Will Wade to be their basketball coach after previously firing him in 2022 amid an NCAA recruiting scandal. Wade came back from North Carolina State, where he led the Wolfpack to the NCAA tournament’s First Four in his lone year at the school. 

But the immediate recruiting impact Wade had during his first stint at LSU hasn’t repeated. The Tigers currently have just one player on their roster: Kentucky transfer Mo Dioubate. 

The transfer portal closed on April 21, and most of its highly coveted entrants have already committed to new schools. There are still players available, but perhaps not many that could have an impact at the Power 4 level. 

Wade’s plan? Go across the pond. 

“This year I’m going to lean a little heavier on the international route,” Wade said on Jon Rothstein’s Inside College Basketball Now podcast. “This will be the last year some of those guys will be eligible. So we’re going to lean a little heavier on the international route. Those kids have a lot of experience. There’s just some natural things that they’ve learned over there that really help college basketball and can translate to us in college basketball.

“We’re gonna certainly get some of the best guys we can from the transfer portal. We’ve gotten a couple and we’re going to try to get a couple more, but we’re going to supplement that with some overseas guys.”

Wade appears to already be putting his plan to work. On Wednesday, the Tigers reportedly landed a commitment from Brazilian forward Marcio Santos, who went unselected in the 2023 NBA draft and spent the past season in the Euroleague playing for Maccabi Tel Aviv in Israel. Santos chose LSU over Kentucky despite Wildcats coach Mark Pope traveling to Israel to meet with him. 

In March, Illinois made its first Final Four in more than 20 years behind the ‘Balkan Five’, a core of southeastern European players. Four of them are represented by Miško Ražnatović, the agent of Nuggets star Nikola Jokic. Misko previously told Front Office Sports that more schools will follow Illinois’s blueprint. 

 “Illinois is very popular,” Ražnatović said to FOS. “First because of the Final Four, second because of having so many players from the Balkan area. It makes for an easier adjustment. After what happened at Illinois, I’m really trying to, when I speak with teams, convince them to have at least two guys. It’s not necessary to have five or six like Illinois, but if you have two, you have someone to adjust with and they perform much better. Next season, I think you’ll see more package deals.”

Luckily for Wade, he has plenty of roster space remaining.