After listing just four players in its program as late as Wednesday, LSU men’s basketball had 10 players available for an exhibition Thursday night at McNeese State.
The Tigers’ roster was just four-deep for months as coach Will Wade worked to reconstruct the program in his return to Baton Rouge. Wade said in September that the roster was up to 13, but he didn’t list all the names, with the speculation being that eligibility questions prevented players from being identified.
In fact, Wade said after Thursday’s 63-60 Tigers win that one of his starters (later reported as Michael Ruzic) was declared eligible at 3:30 p.m., just hours before tipoff in Lake Charles, La. Wade played just seven players in the victory: starters Ruzic, Kentucky transfer Mouhamed Dioubate, Kansas State transfer Abdi Bashir Jr., UCLA transfer Donovan Dent, Michigan State transfer Divine Ugochukwu and freshman reserves Jordan Bender and Strake Pearson.
Wade said that he held out two rotation players so as not to “poke the bear.”
“We have another two that are cleared to play, but we wanted to make sure all the paperwork was final before we did it. We were not trying to do anything untoward towards any acronym (i.e., the NCAA and SEC). So, we were extra cautious,” Wade said, per The Advocate.
Wade said the paperwork on one of those players was submitted late Thursday and that the player should be cleared by Friday.
One player whose status remained uncertain is St. John’s transfer RJ Luis, who did not make the trip Thursday. Luis has NBA experience in camps with the Utah Jazz and Boston Celtics, playing in preseason games for Boston. He joined a lawsuit filed in Louisiana against the NCAA to return to college, and the judge in the case granted the plaintiffs eligibility. Luis signed with LSU in May.
