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Alex Scarborough
Multiple Authors
LSU basketball coach Will Wade isn’t backing away from his approach to roster building this offseason, signing multiple players with eligibility concerns.
One such player is former St. John’s star RJ Luis, who signed two NBA contracts but was given a temporary injunction to play for LSU this season.
Wade, who was fired by LSU four years ago amid accusations of NCAA violations only to return this offseason after rehabilitating his career at McNeese and then NC State, met with reporters in Baton Rouge on Wednesday and compared his approach to two of the most successful businesses this century.
“I’m not hiding from this,” Wade said. “What we’re doing is unconventional. I understand that. But 20 years ago, Airbnb was unconventional. Everybody stayed in a hotel. Fifteen years ago, you rode in a taxi everywhere. Now you take Uber. Just because it’s unconventional doesn’t mean it’s not going to work.
“It may not work. If it doesn’t, write about what an idiot I am. I understand that.”
“We’re going to be unapologetic about it. This is who we are. This is what we’re doing. This is the path that we charted. We’re going to go down it, and that’s fine. … Everybody’s waiting for us to fail. That’s fine. If we fail, I own it.”
LSU basketball coach Will Wade
Former UCLA standouts Skyy Clark and Donovan Dent were part of a lawsuit to gain a fifth year of eligibility and were cleared in a California court to join LSU, though the NCAA has vowed to fight the state decisions.
International players Saliou Niang (the 58th pick in the 2025 NBA draft) and Brice Dessert (undrafted in 2025) could be ineligible under the new SEC rules, even though both players stayed in Europe and did not ultimately sign with NBA teams.
“We’re going to be unapologetic about it,” Wade continued. “This is who we are. This is what we’re doing. This is the path that we charted. We’re going to go down it, and that’s fine. I got it, when you do stuff that’s unconventional, they’re waiting for you to fail. Everybody’s waiting for us to fail.
“That’s fine. If we fail, I own it. I own it. But I felt this is the best way to try to deliver a championship team for LSU from the jump that gives us the best chance to jump-start our program. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. I’ll take it and we’ll restart next year.”
Wade quipped that the Tigers can’t be any worse after going 60-70 under former coach Matt McMahon over the past four years, including a 17-55 record in SEC play.
“Hell, what’s the downside,” Wade said. “I don’t see much downside. We’ve given ourselves a chance at incredible upside and if we’re no good, all right, we just got to live through one more bad year. We’ve had a few of them. We’ll live through one more bad one and we’ll get it going next year. We’ll do it conventionally and we’ll get a bunch of high school five-stars and go do what we do. We can do that, too.
“But that’s not the best way to get it going right now. This is the best way we thought to get it going right now.”
In a sign of just how little is known about the composition of LSU’s roster, the team’s official website listed only four players as of Wednesday afternoon.
Wade told reporters that if it doesn’t work, “write that I’m a moron.”
“We’re going for it,” Wade said. “We already came here the first time and we went to the NCAA tournament four out of five years and did all of that stuff. We came here to win championships. We didn’t come back just to go to the NCAA tournament; we came here to win. We got to be better than we were the first time. This isn’t about nostalgia and all this stuff. We have to be better. And this gives us the best chance to be better.”
