Will Wade is back coaching at LSU and starts second stint with a season-opening victory

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Will Wade’s second act at LSU started on Tuesday night — 1,697 days after his first ended.

Wade was fired on March 12, 2022, just as the NCAA sent LSU formal notice of allegations and later found him guilty of five major recruiting violations.

After a year off, two seasons at McNeese State and one at North Carolina State, Wade is off and running in his LSU sequel. He finally got a 14-man roster cleared, and has already assembled a No. 1-ranked recruiting class for 2027-28 by both 247sports.com and On3.com.

On Tuesday night, he won his regular-season opener, 100-57, in front of 7,919 win-starved fans at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center after consecutive 3-15 Southeastern Conference seasons and 14-18 and 15-17 overall marks under former coach Matt McMahon.

“We’re not back for the nostalgia or any of that. We’re back to win,” the 43-year-old Wade said. “We’re back to dominate. We’re back to build a championship-caliber program.”

Wade won the SEC regular-season championship in his second season of his first stint at LSU in the 2018-19 season at 25-5 overall and 15-2. The team reached the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16, but he couldn’t attend because of being suspended by LSU amid reports of cheating and him not cooperating with LSU’s or the NCAA’s investigation.

He got LSU into two more NCAA Tournaments, but he was fired before the second.

“I would say we’re determined to put a good product on the court and something people can be proud of,” Wade said.

LSU led LSU-New Orleans 53-17 at the half Tuesday night and got its lead to 50 points in the second half at 68-18. LSU led by as many as 54 at 84-30 with 9:07 to play.

“It was a solid first outing,” Wade said.

Donovan Dent, a fifth-year senior transfer from UCLA, led all scorers with 19 points and 10 assists. Five other Tigers scored in double figures, including three who were playing professionally overseas earlier this year.

Michael Ruzic, a 7-foot freshman who played professionally in Catalonia, Spain, and is from Zadar, Croatia, had 17 points and six rebounds.

Forward Saliou Niang, formerly of a pro team in Bologna, Italy, and a native of Dakar, Senegal, in West Africa, finished with 14 points and 14 rebounds. And 6-11 center Brice Dessert, a former pro in Istanbul, Turkey, and a native of Pontoise, France, added 13 points and seven rebounds.

Guard Abdi Bashir Jr., a senior transfer from Kansas State, scored 11 points. And, Mo Dioubate, a senior forward transfer from Kentucky, scored 10 points.

“It’s been a long time coming from the summer time,” Dioubate said. “It was only four of us at a point. And now we’ve got our whole team. We’ve just been ready to go. We’ve got all the tools to get it done. We’re going to shock everyone.”

And Wade is only just beginning … for the second time.

“This was just one step in what we’re trying to do,” he said. “We want to start building a program that can compete on the championship level again.”

Sign up for Top 25 poll alerts here , visit the Top 25 here and see AP’s full men’s basketball coverage here