By KACE KIESCHNICK, Tiger Rag Staff Reporter
Coach Will Wade’s official LSU basketball roster just added one more player for a total of 11, and this is no fill-in walk-on.
Senegalese-Italian forward Saliou Niang was ruled eligible to play this season by both the NCAA and the Southeastern Conference as of Tuesday, CBSSports and 247Sports reported. Matt Norlander reports he was cleared because the NCAA’s policy about not allowing former pros to return to CBB did not pre-date Niang’s decision to attend LSU.
The 6-foot-7 forward was picked 58th overall in the 2025 NBA Draft by the Cleveland Cavaliers, but he instead continued to compete in the EuroLeague and Italian Lega Basket Serie A (LBA) for Virtus Bologna in Bologna, Italy. The 22-year-old has overseas professional experience going back to one game in the 2021-2022 LBA season, but has spent some of the summer and fall as one of the several players of 15 practicing with LSU while awaiting eligibility clearance. He did not play in either of LSU’s exhibition games on Oct. 8 and Oct. 14. He has also not yet been listed on the official roster on LSU’s website, but that is expected to happen soon.
During the 2025-2026 season, Niang appeared in 38 EuroLeague games and 27 LBA games. He averaged 7.1 points and 5.0 rebounds in the EuroLeague and 9.0 points and 5.1 boards in the LBA. Over his professional career, he is a 57.9 percent shooter from the field and 29.7 percent from three-point range, while making 73. percent of his free throws.
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