By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
So far, the LSU men’s basketball program is 1-0 on the road this season.
The Tigers (3-0) have not played on the road yet, but someone sure made the right decision by deciding to fly to Spokane, Washington, on Thursday instead of Friday for LSU’s game at No. 14 Gonzaga (2-0) on Saturday (2:30 p.m. central time, USA Sports) in the 12,638-seat Numerica Veterans Arena off campus.
LSU, which flew over the Mountain time zone one into Pacific time, was able to dodge the national air travel ban on Friday called by the Federal Aviation Administration because of what the government is calling a “telecommunications outage.”
Now, it has to play Gonzaga, which may be two or three talent zones ahead of the Tigers, despite what its coach Mark Few said this week. It will be the first game between the two in history.
“Guys, I’m telling you, he’s got a heck of a roster now,” Few said. “I mean, they might not be as talented as Duke, but it’s probably the second-most talented roster maybe in college basketball with who they have. I mean, I don’t think everybody knows the level of play that the kids they got from international ranks.”
And it doesn’t sound like Few does either.
“He was a sacrificer. He was a fighter. He was a lover.” -Shaquille O’Neal at Dale Brown’s stirring, poignant Celebration of Life. Here’s a blow-by-blow account. https://t.co/GbbFkvtGio
— Glenn Guilbeau (@SportBeatTweet) November 13, 2026
“Yeah, I wouldn’t go with that,” Wade said on Wednesday before the Celebration Of Life ceremonies for LSU basketball coach Dale Brown at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center. “He’s coach talking.”
Few, meanwhile, returns two key players from a team that went 31-4 last season and shared the West Coast Conference at 16-2 last season before losing in the second round of the NCAA Tournament as the No. 3 seed to No. 11 seed Texas.
Senior 6-foot-10 forward Braden Huff averaged 17.8 points for second on the team last season with 5.6 rebounds and is scoring 15 with 3.5 rebounds this season. Sophomore 6-7 guard Davis Fogle scored 17.8 a game for Gonzaga last season with 5.8 rebounds and is averaging 22 with 4.5 boards this season.
That NCAA Tournament last season was Few’s 26th straight, a run that includes two Final Fours with national runner-up finishes in 2017 and ’21, three Elite Eight finishes since 2015 and eight Sweet 16 finishes as the Bulldogs enter the Pac-12 this season.
“I’ve gotten to know Will over the years,” said Few, whose team beat Wade’s upstart McNeese State squad in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in 2024 by 86-65 in Salt Lake City, Utah. “And I think he’s done a great job. Every place he goes, he wins. He’s adapted to this current state of college basketball as good as any.”
Wade has four former pro players from overseas, and three of them have adapted very well so far. Freshman 7-foot center Michael Ruzic is averaging 15.7 points and 7.3 rebounds a game. Saliou Niang, a 6-8 junior forward, is scoring 11.7 a game with 10.3 rebounds and 7-0 center Brice Dessert is averaging 10 points and 5 rebounds. Junior 7-3 center Gilad Levy is only scoring 3.3 a game with less than a rebound a game at the moment.
Senior UCLA transfer point guard Donovan Dent is scoring 13.7 points a game with 8.3 assists a game. Dent scored 12 points with 10 assists in an 82-72 loss to Gonzaga on Dec. 13 of last season in Seattle. Kentucky transfer senior forward Mo Dioubate is scoring 12.7 with 5 rebounds a game.
Few, by the way, also has four newly added overseas pros himself, including 6-10 junior forward Izan Almansa of Marcia, Spain, and 7-1 sophomore center Massamba Diop of Senegal in West Africa. Almansa is scoring 11 points with 4 rebounds a game, and Diop is averaging 9.5 points and 4.5 rebounds.
LSU is coming off three straight wins by 40 points or more for the first time in program history, but this was no triumvirate of terror. It was LSU-New Orleans, Texas Southern and Louisiana Tech. Gonzaga would likely be favored to win the Southeastern Conference this season.
“I think I was the only one dumb enough to go up there and play them,” Wade said this week. “They tried to get everybody else. It’s going to be one of the biggest challenges of our entire season, when you look at our schedule. So, great team, great program, and they’ve got great personnel. It’ll be the first time we got against true bigs. They’ve got bigger guards, too. We’re going to have to play way better than we’ve been playing. We’re going to have to be much tighter just to give ourselves a chance up there in that environment.”
Gonzaga is a 6.5-point favorite.
“We’re going to have to play very clean basketball,” Wade said. “We have to keept them out of transition. They play at one of the fastest rates in the country. Their teams always have. They’re a sight to behold.”
Gonzaga opened the season with a 78-72 win over No. 24 Purdue on Nov. 2 in Las Vegas and beat New Mexico State, 109-68, at home last Saturday.
“The tape doesn’t do justice to their transition offense and how physical their bigs are,” Wade said. “It’ll be a monumental challenge for us. Their pieces and parts fit really, really well.”
Gonzaga is also 190-9 in Spokane since 2012.
Wade didn’t have that in his travel itinerary.
“They’re what?” he said.
“This is like going to play at Kentucky or Florida,” he said after recovering from that stat. “We’ve been dilly-dallying around with these cats the last three games, and we’ve done what we need to do. We’re jumping into the deep end now. We’ll see. From there, we’ll have time to correct the good, the bad and the ugly.”
LSU’s schedule gets ugly after this at home against Louisiana-Monroe (1-4) on Nov. 18 and Queens (2-2) of Charlotte, North Carolina, on Nov. 21 before it gets good against Arizona State (4-0) on Nov. 25 in the Acrisure Series tournament in Palm Desert, California.
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