LSU basketball coach Will Wade is pushing the envelope in recruiting ahead of his first season with the Tigers, arming his program with a roster of professional basketball talent while challenging the fabric of the sport’s unclear eligibility rules.
Not only is LSU reportedly preparing to give 25-year-old guard Yam Madar out of Israel $5 million to sign, but Tuesday’s news of news of the Tigers signing former St. John’s star and G-Leaguer RJ Luis Jr. further adds to the heightened lengths at which Wade is daring the NCAA to act.
Though Luis went unselected in last year’s NBA Draft, he signed a two-way contract with the Utah Jazz before being traded to the Boston Celtics and subsequently waived. The former 2025 Big East Player of the Year never appeared in an NBA game, but his pathway to NCAA eligibility remains cloudy.
Why LSU’s expensive pursuit of Yam Madar, RJ Luis is a troubling sign for the Will Wade rebuild
David Cobb
Florida coach Todd Golden is the first SEC colleague to go on the record against Wade’s recruiting tactics, while others across college basketball — anonymously — have sounded off this week on the non-conventional ways LSU is rebuilding.
“When you’re bringing in 25-, 26-year-olds that have first of all been drafted and have played professionally for an extended period of time — that’s not what college athletics is supposed to be,” Golden said this week on Field of 68. “I know a lot of it has changed. The financial pieces are as important and influential as ever, but this is not what college basketball is supposed to be. This is not what it’s about. This is a net positive because we’re going to have to see some action. We’re going to have to see if guys like this can get cleared or not. I don’t think they have a great chance, but you never know. Maybe Will knows more than us.”
LSU’s 2026 recruiting class currently ranks 72nd nationally per 247Sports and 40th overall in the transfer portal. The Tigers received a commitment Tuesday from 22-year-old wing Saliou Niang, a Senegalese–Italian professional player for Virtus Bologna of the Italian Lega Basket Serie A and EuroLeague. He’s the third EuroLeague player this cycle for the Tigers, joining Brice Dessert and Marcio Santos.
By comparison, Golden and Florida signed 19-year-old center Arturas Butajevas, who has extensive experience with the Lithuanian national program, 7-foot prep senior Jones Lay out of Hickory, N.C., Kentucky transfer Denzel Aberdeen and 22-year-old Slovenian forward Domen Petrović this cycle.
Why G-Leaguer and 2025 Big East Player of the Year RJ Luis signed with Will Wade and LSU
Isaac Trotter
Wade’s 2026 additions at LSU
RJ Luis, 23 years old, G-LeagueBrice Dessert, 23, EuroLeagueMarcio Santos, 23, EuroLeagueSaliou Niang, 22, EuroLeagueMo Dioubate, 22, transfer from KentuckyAustin Nunez, 23, transfer from UTSAAbdi Bashir, 22, transfer Kansas StateDivine Ugochukwu, 20, transfer Michigan State
Expected to be in place for the 2026-27 academic year, the NCAA recently the next step toward implementation of a new 5-in-5 eligibility model that establishes an age cap for athletes, which torches old redshirt rules.
According to an NCAA release on April 27, “The Division I Board of Directors directed the Division I Cabinet to advance an age-based eligibility concept that, if adopted in its current form, would permit student-athletes up to five years of eligibility beginning the regular academic year after they turn 19 or graduate from high school, whichever happens earlier. Under that model, Division I student-athletes would no longer be limited to only four seasons of competition within their five-year eligibility window.”
In the case of LSU signing Luis this week, the Tigers are hoping to challenge the precedent set earlier this year after Alabama’s Charles Bediako was ruled ineligible by Tuscaloosa County Circuit Court Judge Daniel F. Pruet after previously signing a two-way contract. Bediako and Luis chose to bypass the NCAA’s deadline to maintain eligibility and in Luis’s case, he’ll need a favorable outcome from the Louisiana judicial system.
As previously noted by CBS Sports’ Isaac Trotter, NCAA president Charlie Baker reiterated last December that the NCAA will not reinstate eligibility to anyone who has signed a two-way contract with a NBA franchise. The NCAA also doubled down on that standard earlier this month in a memo to teams.
