Matt McMahon never felt like a fit at LSU; it turns out that those feelings were correct. The Tigers were consistently a bottom-of-the-barrel team in the SEC and were not getting any better. Granted, the SEC is one of the best conferences in the country, but there is no reason LSU should have been consistently terrible under McMahon.
Questions from the beginning
McMahon always felt like a rushed hire because LSU had to scramble after Will Wade was suspended after a scandal for paying players in the 2022 season. Ironically, that was the last time that LSU was good. McMahon was relieved of his duties, and the Tigers hired Will Wade again to turn the program back around. With paying players legal, should it be easy for Coach Wade to sign players and bring the program back to the NCAA Tournament?
That was the hope when LSU hired coach Wade, but up until August 12th it wasn’t going according to plan. The Tigers lost every player on the 2025-2026 roster to the transfer portal, and coach Wade was only able to secure 4 total players.
Those four players were Divine Ugochukwu, a transfer from Michigan State; Abdi Bashir Jr., a sharpshooter from Kansas State; Austin Nunez, a guard from UTSA; and finally Mouhamed Dioubate, a transfer from Kentucky. Coach Wade has some talented players, but since there are only four, it will be a little hard to play a game with five players on the floor.
The latest addition
Never fear, though, Tigers fans, LSU finally has a full starting five after receiving a commitment on August 13th from fifth-year senior Skyy Clark. Clark is a transfer from UCLA who is one of the better shooters remaining in the portal. Clark will be a good addition to the Tigers' team, and, most importantly, he will allow the Tigers to conduct a full practice at least for now.
The Five for Five ruling passed for players currently in college. Still, all of the players who started in 202,2 like Skyy Clark, are eligible to play right now under a court ruling, but that ruling is being challenged by the NCAA every day, and the NCAA is fighting hard to get it overturned.
If the ruling is overturned, that would put LSU back at 4 players, meaning they would no longer be able to field a team. So where do the Tigers turn to now? That depends on who you ask. The Head Coach wants everyone to know that he has had silent commitments from players for months, most of them international. He went so far as to say that by the time school starts, LSU will have a loaded roster.
School starting soon
Lucky for you readers, things like that are verifiable. LSU starts school on August 24th, which is in 10 days. August 14th is International Student Orientation. That tells you that those “silent commitments” should already be on campus ready to get started with the school year. I, like many others, think that what Wade said is just a line to stop the panic.
LSU desperately needs bodies at this point; they need any body who can play a little bit of basketball. The international recruits are not coming, or, if they are, the entire basketball community will hear about them within the next 24-48 hours. Don’t be surprised if the open tryout flyers start hitting the inboxes of every LSU male in a couple of days.
Wade was supposed to turn the LSU program around and restore its relevance. Be patient; that will probably happen, but it won't happen as quickly as Wade and the administration would like. LSU said they were going to pony up the money to bring the basketball program back to prominence. The players that are committed show that is likely the case, so then do players not want to play for Will Wade? Or did coach Wade just not recruit and was hoping that 5-for-5 would pass to fill the roster? Will LSU fill out this roster before practice starts? Time will tell; we will all be watching.
Add us as a preferred source on Google