Rick Stansbury signs contract to join Will Wade LSU staff as associate head coach

Former Mississippi State head coach Rick Stansbury is back in the SEC after being hired as the associate head coach on new LSU head coach Will Wade‘s staff, according to On3 national college sports reporter Wilson Alexander. Stansbury is the first hire Wade has made since returning to Baton Rouge last week.

The 66-year-old Stansbury remains the all-time winningest coach in Mississippi State program history after going 293-166 (.638) over 14 seasons in Starkville between 1998-2012. Stansbury’s 293 career wins with the Bulldogs also rank ninth all-time in SEC men’s basketball history.

LSU would be Stansbury’s second post-Mississippi State stint as an SEC assistant after serving two seasons as Billy Kennedy‘s associate head coach at Texas A&M from 2014-16 before getting another head coaching opportunity at Western Kentucky in 2016. Stansbury went 139-89 in seven seasons in Bowling Green (KY), including four consecutive 20-win seasons between 2017-21, including a Conference USA regular-season championship in 2021.

After leaving Western Kentucky in 2023, Stansbury joined Penny Hardaway’s staff at Memphis between 2023-25. During that experience, Stansbury went 3-0 as the Tigers’ interim head coach while Hardaway served a three-game suspension levied by the NCAA over recruiting violations in 2023.

Stansbury, who sat out the 2025-26 season, is known as a dogged recruiter and will undoubtedly lead the Tigers’ recruiting efforts under Wade, a strong recruiter in his own right. By adding Stansbury, it’s clear Wade is pulling out all the stops to return LSU to its former glory on the hardcourt.

Will Wade cracks joke in return to LSU: ‘Win a national championship or first coach fired from same school twice’

Allow Will Wade to reintroduce himself. Wade was formally introduced as LSU‘s new head men’s basketball coach on Monday in Baton Rouge following a controversial exit at NC State.

Wade infamously left the Wolfpack after just one season in Raleigh to rejoin the Tigers, where he coached from 2017-22, going 105-51 before being fired amid NCAA recruiting violations. This time around, Wade has his eye on making history with LSU, one way or another.

“Make no mistake, this is home,” Wade said Monday. “I wasn’t born in Louisiana, but Louisiana’s home for me, and me and my family and so, you know, we’re coming back to make history. We’re gonna make history one way or the other … to try to hang a banner, win a national championship. Or I’m going to be the first coach fired from the same school twice. But one way or another, one way or another, we’re going to make history.”

Wade replaces Matt McMahon, who was fired on March 26, the same day Wade’s hiring was made official. McMahon went just 60-70 overall and never made an NCAA Tournament in four seasons in Baton Rouge after replacing Wade in 2022.

— On3’s Nick Kosko contributed to this report.