Something is happening in College Basketball, and it isn’t good. Let’s get into that more later, because it is ruining the game. RJ Luis, the former Big East player of the year, has signed with the LSU Tigers to play for Will Wade. The move makes sense for the Tigers, considering they need players, especially guys with the star potential that Luis has. The commitment from the forward gives LSU a guy to build their offense around.
Plenty of debate
The commitment doesn’t come without scrutiny. To be fair, most of the time that Will Wade does something in basketball, it is going to come with scrutiny. At this point, the college basketball world has been made aware of Luis and his unfriendly exit from St. John’s and the very public feud with Coach Pitino after being benched in the second half of an NCAA Tournament game. That isn’t where the controversy comes in.
Luis played for St. John’s for the last time in the 2024-2025 season. After that season, he decided to forego his college eligibility and enter the NBA draft, or so we all thought. According to NCAA rules, if a player enters the NBA draft and withdraws before a certain date, they may remain in college and retain their eligibility. Lately, though, that rule has been more of a suggestion. Baylor opened the floodgates when it signed big man James Nnaji away from the NBA. Luis, much like Nnaji, has yet to play a minute in the NBA and has decided that it would be in his best interest to play one final year in Baton Rouge. His situation is different from that of Charles Bediako, who moonlighted for Alabama last year, because Bediako actually played minutes in the NBA before playing in college.
Luis status
The NCAA initially said that any player who has played in the NBA would no longer be eligible. Bediako went to court and won, temporarily, before the NCAA finally stood pat. The NCAA is opening itself up to the types of lawsuits Bediako created. The NCAA can be easily persuaded, it seems, and usually doesn’t put up much of a fight when things don’t go as they would like.
In their defense, it always takes someone to start the avalanche, and in this instance, it was Scott Drew and his signing of Nnaji last year. There are always guys out there who are going to bend the rules, and Will Wade is always going to be near the top of any of those lists, but is he bending the rules in this instance?
LSU isn’t bending the rules per se because the NCAA allows players to play even after playing for an NBA franchise. One thing is for sure: Coach Wade isn’t doing anything to stem the tide of the NBA players heading back to college basketball. So far, this hasn’t been much of a problem, given that Nnaji wasn’t all that good last year and Bediako only played a little before being denied eligibility.
Luis is different; he was the most recent Big East Player of the Year and is the perfect fit for LSU. He is better than every available player in the transfer portal, and Luis technically wasn’t even in the transfer portal this year because he forfeited the rest of his eligibility two seasons ago. His signing doesn’t technically break the rules as presently constructed, but it does help further reinforce that the NCAA has to stand pat on the very rule against this. This is the one court case they could win.
Bottom line
Poaching players from the NBA is not an avenue that college sports should continue to pursue. It leads to a slippery slope, and soon there will be an influx of players who have played significant NBA minutes, or at least that is the road the sport is going down. Something bad is happening to college basketball, and it isn’t good!
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