Dusty May’s stunning departure from Michigan last month reiterated that the college basketball calendar never truly stops.
But it does slow down — and as July kicks off, that’s exactly where most teams find themselves. Rosters and benches are mostly settled, and summer practice underway.
Most teams, that is.
Not LSU.
Ever since the Tigers rehired Will Wade this spring — four years after firing him for cause amid NCAA allegations — their roster build has been under the microscope, mostly for seeming to push the limits of player eligibility. No wonder, then, that more than three months since Wade returned to Baton Rouge, the exact makeup of his 2026-27 team remains unsure, to say the least.
For now, LSU has a whopping four players listed on its roster for next season. But several international players who haven’t been announced yet are also on the way, according to Wade — though that’s assuming their assorted backgrounds are approved by the NCAA. RJ Luis Jr. also reportedly plans to play for LSU, but the former St. John’s star’s eligibility is in doubt because he signed multiple NBA contracts.
So what gives?
“The day school starts, we’ll have a really good team,” Wade told CBS’ Jon Rothstein in May, some of his only public comments on the matter to date.
Here’s a closer look at LSU’s many moving pieces.
Going international
Wade accepted the LSU job on March 26 — after just one season at NC State and a week and a half before the transfer portal opened. Mining it for top players coincided with hiring a staff and evaluating LSU’s holdovers.
The Tigers quickly homed in on Santa Clara forward Allen Graves, a Louisiana native ranked as The Athletic’s sixth-best transfer, but Graves ultimately had enough pro interest to stay in the NBA Draft. (The Toronto Raptors selected him 19th.) Then, it became apparent that none of former LSU coach Matt McMahon’s players were going to stick around.
So Wade and his staff looked to the the international ranks in a big way, with at least four players tabbed to join the Tigers.
While Wade’s international commitments aren’t official, several have been reported. Of that group, the headliner is Saliou Niang, a Senegalese-Italian wing who was drafted 58th by the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2025 (but never signed an NBA contract of any kind). Niang, who turned 22 in May, could be one of this season’s best international arrivals, a 6-foot-6 defensive-minded wing who can also slash to the rim. Niang most recently averaged 7.1 points and 5 rebounds per game for Virtus Bologna in the EuroLeague, arguably the best in basketball outside the NBA.
Others expected arrivals include 6-8 Brazilian forward Marcio Santos, who turns 24 in November, most recently starred for Maccabi Tel Aviv and has previously played in the NBA summer league. Then there’s 6-11 French center Brice Dessert, a 23-year-old with EuroLeague experience. Michael Ruzic is a 6-10 Croatian forward who turns 20 in October and comes from the Spanish ACB league.
Put together, those players would constitute a formidable frontcourt.
LSU’s pursuit of international contributors is no different, to a certain extent, than that of many other high-profile programs. Nine of The Athletic’s offseason top 25 teams are expected to start at least one international player next season. If Wade had stayed at NC State, he still would have pursued international players, though likely not at this volume.
But a potential holdup dates back to a memo the NCAA sent to schools in early May, reiterating existing pre-enrollment guidelines that appeared to crack down on international arrivals. (Sports Illustrated first reported the distribution of the memo.) Specifically, it stated that athletes who “entered an agreement with, competed on or received compensation from a team that participates in a league with minimum compensation that exceeds actual and necessary expenses” would not be eligible to play collegiately.
The memo listed domestic professional leagues like the NBA and NFL as examples, but many coaches worried whether that guidance would also pertain to internationals from certain leagues — especially the EuroLeague, which has a collective bargaining agreement mandating a minimum compensation of roughly $58,000 for first-year players.
While that sum pales in comparison to the seven-figure deals many high-major college players will earn next season, it also seemingly exceeds what the NCAA deems “actual and necessary expenses,” such as meals, lodging, transportation and equipment.
However, multiple high-major coaches told The Athletic that they’re not anticipating an NCAA crackdown on EuroLeague arrivals — at least not this year. That’s because the NCAA freely granted eligibility last offseason to multiple EuroLeague players, such as Duke’s Dame Sarr and Arizona’s Ivan Kharchenkov, and coaching staffs operated under that same precedent when recruiting this spring.
A wave of ineligibility rulings would not only cost multiple top 25 teams starting-caliber players, but compromise millions of dollars worth of name, image and likeness and revenue-sharing contracts that have already been agreed to.
Most coaches are now operating as if the tightening of rules around EuroLeague players — such as Niang, Santos and Dessert — will instead come next offseason, and overlap with the onset of the NCAA’s new age-based eligibility standards (plus a possible college sports bill in Congress).
Wade in May told Louisiana outlet The Advocate, “We feel very comfortable in our position.”
Meaning LSU — pending NCAA waivers — could indeed end up fielding a foreign-heavy frontcourt that can compete with the SEC’s best.
But international players aren’t LSU’s only uncertainty.
RJ Luis Jr. to LSU?
There’s also Luis, whose commitment to the Tigers in mid-May immediately sparked a wave of backlash and online criticism. The NCAA previously ruled that players who signed NBA contracts of any kind — which Luis has twice — would not be eligible. By signing Luis, LSU seems to be blatantly challenging that very precedent, which was established mere months ago with Charles Bediako at Alabama.
Bediako, who signed a two-way NBA contract and played three seasons in the G League, received a temporary restraining order against the NCAA and played fives games last season for the Crimson Tide. Another judge ended his run by denying him a temporary injunction.
Luis played three college seasons for UMass and St. John’s from 2022-25, peaking as a junior with the Red Storm in 2024-25, averaging 18.2 points and 7.2 rebounds as St. John’s captured the program’s first Big East regular-season and tournament titles in decades. But after being benched in the Johnnies’ 2025 NCAA Tournament loss, Luis entered the transfer portal, while also entering his name in the NBA Draft. He stayed in the draft (despite not being considered a first-round pick) and went unselected before signing a two-way contract with the Utah Jazz in July 2025.
A month later, Luis was dealt to the Boston Celtics, who waived him on the eve of the 2025-26 season — after he had suffered a groin injury that required surgery and before he ever played a game.
Days after the franchise waived him in October 2025, it signed him to an Exhibit-10 contract — a one-year, non-guaranteed NBA minimum salary deal — with its G League affiliate, the Maine Celtics, only to waive him again a day later.
Will this context matter to the NCAA?
With the NCAA and president Charlie Baker drawing a clear line on NBA contracts, it’s hard to imagine the NCAA would reinstate Luis’ eligibility — but many college athletes, like Bediako, have asked a court to step in when denied by the NCAA.
Tigers on the roster
The few players already on LSU’s roster are conventional transfer portal recruits: guards Divine Ugochukwu (Michigan State), Abdi Bashir (Kansas State) and Austin Nunez (UTSA), plus forward Mouhamed Dioubate (Kentucky).
Nunez is unlikely to be a key contributor, but the other three should have clearly defined roles for the Tigers next season, regardless of how the rest of the roster shapes up.
Bashir has been a lights-out 3-point shooter and is coming off a season-ending stress fracture in his right foot. Ugochukwu also suffered a season-ending foot injury but had transformed into a solid backup guard. Dioubate was a sometimes-starter for Kentucky last season who ranked as The Athletic’s 59th-best transfer. The 6-7 wing has blossomed into one of the SEC’s more versatile defenders.
Those three give Wade at least something of a foundation to build on. But where LSU eventually ends up — as a top-15 side or one of the SEC’s afterthoughts — remains very much up in the air.
— CJ Moore contributed reporting.
