By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
New LSU men’s basketball coach Will Wade has returned to Baton Rouge from his European recruiting excursion this week with possibly a new player to add to his one-man roster.
Saliou Niang (6-foot-6, 190 pounds), who averaged 8.9 points and 5.1 rebounds for his 14-24 team this past season, may be close to committing to the Tigers, a Tiger Rag source has confirmed after an original report by TigerBait.com.
Niang, 21 and a native of Dakar, Senegal, in West Africa, was the 28th pick of the second round of the 2025 NBA Draft and 58th selection overall of a possible 59 by the Cleveland Cavaliers. But he decided to play professionally in Bologna instead.
Niang would join Wade’s only roster member – No. 8-ranked transfer portal small forward Mouhamad Dioubate (6-7, 220), formerly of Kentucky. All players with eligibility remaining from former coach Matt McMahon’s 2025-26 team entered the portal, and his three signees reopened their recruitment.
LSU could be officially confirming Niang’s signing along with multiple others from Wade in the coming days. One of the reasons Wade hired former Mississippi State and Western Kentucky head coach Rick Stansbury was because of his recruiting contacts in Europe.
As reported more than a week ago by Tiger Rag, Will Wade IS hiring Johnny Jones and Rick Stansbury.https://t.co/8arUVSwrT6
— Glenn Guilbeau (@SportBeatTweet) April 7, 2026
Niang is known as an excellent defender, and Wade spoke of trying to become more of a defensive coach in his second stint at LSU. Wade previously was LSU’s head coach from 2017-22 before his firing for a litany of NCAA recruiting violations. He resurfaced as McNeese State’s coach in the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons before coaching North Carolina State for the 2025-26 season.
“Our first time here, we had some top ten offenses,” Wade said at his second LSU introductory press conference on March 30. “We were more offensive oriented. But we were a little bit all over the place. Now I know the formula, and we’re going to come back and we’re going to have a top ten offense and a top ten defense at the same time, which will allow us to compete at the level that we want to compete at. Defensively, we’re going to be disruptive. We’re going to play aggressive defensively and be disruptive.”
Wade hopes to sign 13 or 14 players in all, which means he has much work to do.
LSU’s one-man portal class is currently ranked No. 95 in the nation by 247sports.com and as the 15th of 16 SEC programs. Florida has one portal addition as well and is not ranked, but the Gators do not need a lot of transfers the way Wade does. Florida’s 2024-25 national champion coach Todd Golden returns much of his roster from this past season when the Gators went 27-8 and won the SEC at 16-2 before losing in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
LSU is one of the few major programs in the nation with only one portal commitment or signee. Michigan State, Illinois, Purdue, Virginia and Florida are others. Stanford, meanwhile, has no portal additions, but it has five high school signees.
Wade, by the way, just missed on a high school target last Monday when No. 9 small forward and 247sports.com’s No. 55 overall prospect Miikka Muurinen (6-10, 205) committed to Arkansas from KK Partizan High in Serbia.
One of the few highly ranked portal players who is still out there whom Wade is targeting is No. 2 power forward and No. 4 overall portal player Allen Graves (6-9, 225), a redshirt freshman last season at Santa Clara. He entered the portal on April 10. Graves played at Ponchatoula High, and his brother Marshall Graves played for Wade at LSU from 2017-20.
Wade has missed on seven portal players it is believed he had targeted:
-No. 32 overall and No. 7 center Aiden Sherrell (6-11, 255) of Alabama to Indiana on April 15.
-No. 132 overall and No. 25 small forward Terrance Arceneaux (6-6, 205) of North Carolina State to George Washington on April 15.
-No. 31 overall and No. 5 combination guard Jeremiah Wilkinson (6-1, 185) of Georgia to Arkansas on April 14.
-No. 85 overall and No. 18 small forward KJ Lewis (6-4, 210) of Georgetown to USC on April 14.
-No. 115 overall and No. 17 shooting guard Devin Vanterpool (6-4, 190) of Florida Atlantic to Providence on April 14.
-No. 49 overall and No. 11 point guard Jalan Lowe (6-1, ,170) of Kentucky to Georgetown on April 13.
-No. 6 overall and No. 1 point guard PJ Haggerty (6-4, 195) of Kansas State to Texas A&M on April 10.
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