Will Wade isn’t trying to be conventional. He’s not trying to settle for nostalgic storylines and tournament appearances. And he doesn’t give a damn what many outside Louisiana have to say.
LSU’s once-again coach provided a considerable media turnout Wednesday an outlook for his first season back in Baton Rouge in his typically fiery and humorous fashion.
Wade assured that the Tigers have a complete roster in place and have been practicing largely in “business as usual” fashion since “right after Labor Day” despite only having four players listed on the online roster as Division-I programs ramp up extended playing-season practice hours.
Moreover, he exuded confidence that this year’s team has the chance to compete at a championship level.
“I’m not hiding from this: What we’re doing’s unconventional,” Wade said of his lean into veteran transfers and international players to build this year’s roster. “I understand that. I understand that. But, you know, 20 years ago, AirBnB was unconventional. Everybody stayed in a hotel. Fifteen years ago, you rode in a taxi everywhere. Now you take Uber. So just because it’s unconventional doesn’t mean it’s not gonna work.
“Yeah, it may not work. If it doesn’t work, write about what an idiot I am. I understand that. But just because it’s unconventional — it’s like I told our guys: We’re gonna be unconventional, and we’re gonna be unapologetic about it. It is what it is. We’re gonna be unapologetic. This is who we are. This is what we’re doing. This is the path that we charted, and we’re gonna go down it. And that’s fine… Hey, look, when you do stuff that’s unconventional, everybody’s 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.”
Only forward Mouhamed Dioubate and guards Divine Ugochukwu, Abdi Bashir Jr. and Austin Nunez — transfers from Kentucky, Michigan State, Kansas State and UTSA, respectively — are currently listed on the Tigers’ public roster.
But Wade said 15 players have been enrolled in school and practicing together for weeks, that he would comfortably comment on 14 of those players at the moment and that, while three or four players are still awaiting official eligibility clearance, he is confident LSU will have “all the guys that we can get eligible and need eligible” by the season opener Nov. 3 against UNO.
“I don’t want to get into and I can’t get into for a variety of different reasons all the eligibility of each guy, and we’re not gonna go down that road on each kid. I know there’s been some frustrations probably with how we’ve done this, but we’re always gonna protect our kids. And there’s a reason behind all of this. And I’m not gonna 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 gonna protect them and we always are gonna do what’s right by them. And I feel that we’re doing what’s right by those players.”
The one exception Wade would seem to be former St. John’s guard R.J. Luis Jr., who is involved in an ongoing legal battle for another potential season of eligibility.
Luis played one season at UMass (2022-23) and two at St. John’s (2023-25) before going undrafted in the June 2025 and signing a two-way contract with the Utah Jazz.
The 6-foot-7, 215-pound wing was traded to the Boston Celtics that August, waived in October and signed with the G-League affiliate Maine Celtics, but suffered an injury and was waived before the season.
A 19th Judicial District judge in Baton Rouge granted Luis, the 2025 Big East Player of the Year, a preliminary injunction Aug. 24 that would legally allow him to play this season, but the SEC has staunchly fought during the past month against athletes returning from professional opportunities since many have challenged the league and the NCAA following the association’s overhaul of its eligibility system this summer.
“I can talk about whoever you wanna talk about… I mean, outside of one, because you know the SEC, they hold everybody’s words against them,” Wade said. “So I wanna be careful about not doing anything with that. But outside of that one — I think everybody knows who I’m talking about — with him we’re gonna go through the process, 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 gonna go through processes, and we’ll see where that ends up.”
The coach said he’s been proud of the way the team of players from a wide range of backgrounds has come together in a short time.
Asked about what three international players in French center Brice Dessert, Senegalese-Italian forward Saliou Niang, Croatian forward Michael Ruzic bring to the program, Wade quipped, “We’ve got more than three,” with a smile and a wink.
He’s particularly confident in the outlook on offense where the Tigers have shown the ability to perform well as they’ve worked to increase their pace and said defensive rebounding is his chief concern with two weeks until a preseason exhibition at McNeese State and six weeks until the regular season.
Wade was well aware that he and the approach have garnered criticism around the country, and he was equally unconcerned.
“We’re not concerned what anybody on the outside thinks,” he said. “They can all think what they want to think. But we’re here to build a winner for LSU and for Louisiana. That’s who my responsibility’s to — nobody else. I really don’t give a damn about anybody else. And so that’s what our responsibility’s to, so as long as we’re serving those people and as long as we’re doing that, we’re doing our job. And what anybody else thinks about our job, to hell with ’em.”
The coach smiled that some of the seemingly bad press has actually appeared to help in recruiting, as it piques interest to look more into him and the program and the way they operate.
He said he the Tigers plan to take incorporate more high school recruiting again for the 2027 cycle and beyond with a full year or more to focus on those classes as opposed to arriving back to Baton Rouge this spring.
But goals to win at a high level in his first season returning to the program called for a different strategy in Wade’s mind, and some of the shifting landscape of college sports overall helped present new opportunities to potentially expedite success by working outside of or challenging old approaches.
“If I’m wrong, I’m wrong — I’ll take it, and we’ll restart next year,” he said. “We ain’t gonna be any worse than we’ve been. So, I mean, hell, what’s the downside? I don’t see much downside in that. We’re giving ourselves a chance at incredible upside. And if we’re no good, alright, we’ve just gotta live through one more bad year. We’ve had a few of ’em. We’ll live through one more bad one, and we’ll get it going next year. We’ll do it conventionally, and we’ll go get a bunch of high school five-stars and go do what we do. So we can do that, too.
“But that’s not the best way to get it going right now. This is the way we thought was the best way to get it going right now. And you guys can all write I’m a moron if it doesn’t work. I own that. I’m the one out front of this. I’m the one who charted the course. I’m the one who did that. If it don’t work, hold me accountable. We’ll get it to work the next year. But I felt this was the best way to get it going. And, hey, we’re going for it. We already came here the first time and went to the NCAA Tournament four out of five years, and we did all of that stuff. And we came here to win championships. We didn’t come back just to go to the NCAA Tournament. We came here to win. We’ve gotta be better than we were the first time. This isn’t about nostalgia and all that other stuff. We’ve gotta be better. So this gives us the best chance to be better.”
