By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
LSU men’s basketball coach Will Wade has signed his first bona fide franchise player that could dramatically turn around the Tigers from Southeastern Conference doormat to contender overnight.
Wade has signed former All-American and Big East Player of the Year from the 2024-25 season at St. John’s in shooting guard/small forward RJ Luis (6-foot-7, 215 pounds), according to CBS Sports reports on Tuesday. Luis averaged 18.2 points, 7.2 rebounds and 1.4 steals as a starter in 32 of 35 games for St. John’s two seasons ago for coach Rick Pitino.
Luis, who went to Mt. Zion Prep Academy in Lanham, Maryland, and played for Massachusetts in the 2022-23 season before transferring to Pitino and St. John’s, went undrafted in the 2025 NBA Draft. He then signed a contract with Utah Jazz before being traded to the Boston Celtics, who sent him to their G League Maine Celtics team. But Luis never played in a professional game.
And Wade will be trying to get him eligible for the 2026-27 season. There could be legal issues involved with that, however.
In the 2023-24 season for Pitino, Luis was mainly a backup before starting 10 of 23 games as a sophomore and blossoming as a junior. Luis scored in double figures in 22 games in the 2024-25 season and scored 20 or more 14 times with 10 points-rebounds double-doubles.
“If he can receive more eligibility, he will enter the 2026-27 season as one of the top players in the Southeastern Conference and is the type of wing Wade needs to lead LSU,” according to Yahoo Sports.
Luis is the fifth player on Wade’s roster in his first season as LSU’s coach the second time around after coaching the Tigers from 2017-22. Luis joins previous commitments and or signees Austin Nunez, a transfer guard from Texas-San Antonio, transfer guard Abdi Bashir Jr. from Kansas State, transfer point guard Divine Ugochukwu of Michigan State, Kentucky transfer forward Mouhamed Dioubate and center Marcio Santos, a European professional player in Tel Aviv, Israel.
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