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Will Wade says he will 'lean a little heavier on the international route' at LSU

Brian Jones Profile Picby: Brian Jones05/06/26brianjones_93

LSU men’s basketball head coach Will Wade is ready to go overseas to build his roster for next season. While appearing on Jon Rothstein’s Inside College Basketball Now podcast, Wade revealed that he is planning to add more international players.

“This year I’m going to lean a little heavier on the international route,” Wade said. “This will be the last year some of those guys will be eligible. So we’re going to lean a little heavier on the international route. Those kids have a lot of experience. There’s just some natural things that they’ve learned over there that really help college basketball and can translate to us in college basketball.

“We’re gonna certainly get some of the best guys we can from the transfer portal. We’ve gotten a couple, and we’re going to try to get a couple more, but we’re going to supplement that with some overseas guys.”

Wade has some work to do because he has just one player on the roster, Kentucky transfer Mo Dioubate. However, the Tigers reportedly landed a commitment from Brazilian forward Marcio Santos, who spent the last season in the Euroleague playing for Maccabi Tel Aviv in Israel.

Will Wade discusses leaving NC State for LSU

This is Wade’s second stint at LSU, as he was originally with the team from 2017 to 2022. He was fired in March 2022 amid a recruiting scandal. He took a year off from coaching before McNesse hired him for the 2023-24 season. Wade was at McNesse for two seasons before joining NC State last year. In his one season with the Wolfpack, Wade led the program to a 20-14 record and an appearance in the NCAA tournament’s First Four.

“It was very difficult,” Wade said on the podcast about leaving LSU. “It was something that I thought about quite a bit. I stayed up that night when I knew that LSU would be a possibility and had to weigh the pros and the cons.”

In Wade’s first stint at LSU, he led the team to the NCAA tournament three times in his four seasons. His best year was in 2018-19, when the Tigers finished 25-5 and reached the Sweet 16.