By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
There is room at the LSU Basketball Inn. That’s for sure.
While LSU’s athletics website lists only four players on the men’s basketball roster, coach Will Wade has maintained that he will have enough on his roster by the time school starts on Aug. 24.
And he has gone dark with no roster additions since mid-June with a commitment from a forward out of Northside Christian School in St. Petersburg, Florida, named Jordan Bender, who does not appear on any major recruiting websites.
Wade’s four portal signees on the roster from a class ranked No. 44 nationally by 247sports.com are No. 11 small forward Mouhamed Dioubate (No. 68 overall) of Kentucky, No. 26 shooting guard Abdi Bashri (132 overall) of Kansas State, No. 48 point guard Divine Ugochukwu (243 overall) of Michigan State and unranked guard Austin Nunez of Texas-San Antonio. He does have four international commitments who remain unsigned at the moment – forward Saliou Niang of Italy, center Marcio Santos of Brazil, center Brice Dessert of France and forward Michael Ruzic of Croatia.
And there is a commitment from former St. John’s star forward RJ Luis, who last played collegiately in 2024-25, averaging 18.2 points and 7.2 rebounds in being named the Big East player of the year. Only problem with him is he signed NBA contracts with the Utah Jazz and Boston Celtics, and will likely need a legal fast break to get eligible for the Tigers this season.
BREAKING: UCLA transfer guard Skyy Clark has committed to LSU, @JoeTipton reports🐯https://t.co/lxhXuWk9vC https://t.co/MgCgThBAIw pic.twitter.com/brPDs06eqK
— On3 (@On3) August 12, 2026
But a courtroom ruling by U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney in Colorado early this month could get Wade a much-needed new player. Sweeney ruled that college athletes who signed in 2022 can get a fifth year of eligibility because of the NCAA’s new rules instituting five-year athletic careers instead of four in five.
Sources: UCLA transfer Skyy Clark has committed to LSU.
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) August 12, 2026
Averaged 11.5 PPG last season and entered the Transfer Portal in April.
Clark is seeking a fifth year of eligibility during the 2026-27 season.
And on Wednesday, UCLA guard Skyy Clark reportedly committed to Wade for a fifth season. The NCAA is battling to overturn Sweeney’s ruling, though. But it is still fun to think about Luis and Clark playing for the Tigers.
Clark (6-foot-3, 210 pounds) averaged 11.5 points, 2.0 assists, 1.2 steals and hit 47 percent from 3-point range last season for UCLA, which finished 24-12 and 13-7 in the Big Ten and reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament. He averged 8.5 points and 2.7 assists with 1.3 steals in 2024-25 at UCLA. At Louisville in 2023-24, he scored 13.2 a game with 3.0 assists a game. As a freshman at Illinois in 2022-23, he scored 7.0 points a game with 2.1 assists.
In 2022, he signed with Illinois as the No. 34 prospect in the country, No. 7 point guard and No. 8 player in Florida from Montverde Academy in Montverde, Florida. He is not ranked as a portal player since the judge’s ruling just happened a little over a week ago.
Clark is used to travel. LSU would be his fourth college, and Montverde was his third high school.
Born in Minneapolis, Clark grew up in the Los Angeles area and played his first two prep seasons at Heritage Christian in Northridge, California, near L.A. Then he played at Ensworth High in Nashville before moving to Florida.
LSU practice begins on Sept. 21, and its season opener is on Nov. 3 against LSU-New Orleans.
LANE KIFFIN ON ADDING PLAYERS RELATED TO 2022 RULING
Meanwhile, LSU football coach Lane Kiffin, whose roster is full, did not seem very interested in the new crop of 2022 football players suddenly available via the Sweeney fifth-year ruling.
“We look at everything, so we would be prepared for that,” he said when asked if he would consider adding any fifth-year seniors who began their careers in 2022 this close to the season. But he didn’t sound convincing.
“I don’t know what that would mean,” he said. “You’ve always got to look at who they are, and will they learn your systems and all those things coming that late? They haven’t been with programs for seven months. And where some are at (like at LSU), the coaches have changed at a number of them. And there are places that don’t want them back because they’re full at that position, or there are new coaches there.”
LSU fans have asked on various radio talk shows about Kiffin possibly adding defensive linemen Bernard Gooden and Jack Pyburn, who were seniors in 2025 at LSU. But Gooden actually began his college career in 2021 at Wake Forest, not in 2022 for the court ruling. Pyburn did begin his college career in 2022 at Florida, but he recently joined Tampa Bay in the NFL as an undrafted free agent.
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