LSU basketball in panic mode with five players committed to Will Wade's reboot

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LSU basketball in panic mode with five players committed to Will Wade's reboot originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

The month of August is typically slow for college basketball. In the new era, the calendar never truly stops. For the LSU Tigers though, everything has come to a dead stop.

Most teams are trying to finalize the roster in July before turning up in September and into training camp before the season.

As of now, LSU doesn't have a solid starting five. UCLA transfer Skyy Clark announced he was joining the team on Wednesday night. He's the fifth player on the roster thus far.

Here's at look at the five current LSU players:

Abdi Bashir Jr. (Sr., G)
Skyy Clark (Sr., G)
Austin Nunez (Sr., G)
Mouhamed Dioubate (Sr., F)
Divine Ugochukwu (Jr., G)

The reboot in Baton Rouge isn't looking so hot right now. Several international players, who reportedly haven’t been announced yet, will be joining the Tigers, according to Wade.

Yet, nothing has officially materialized. This is assuming there are zero red flags thrown by the NCAA in the process. Former NBA prospect RJ Luis Jr. also plans to play for LSU, but signing multiple NBA contracts and playing in the league has no path back to college.

Wade holds all the cards in the situation. At the end of the day, we're 83 days from LSU taking on in-state rival New Orleans and the SEC program can't fill up 15 two-thirds of the roster.

MORE:'You suck': College basketball insider has blunt message for Will Wade

Four years after Wade was fired for cause amid NCAA allegations, his second stint is looking like a lame-duck coaching tenure. Trying to push the limits of player eligibility in order to get former NBA players isn't a winning formula. There are more coaches on Wade's staff than players on the team. All facts and no lies.

Instead of Wade trying to reinvent the system with washed-up NBA talent, get out and recruit in the gyms around the country.

“The day school starts, we’ll have a really good team,” Wade told CBS’ Jon Rothstein in May.

Where is the talent coming from? The NCAA is fighting vigorously in court to block the fifth-year transfer gates from opening. That would be a solid way to fill the ten open spots. If it doesn't happen, that's when trouble sets in. Not to mention, classes in Baton Rouge start in two weeks.

Wade accepted the LSU job back in March. If you asked NC State officials, the process started before the season ended. The Tigers coaches were in place for the transfer portal window a month later. Yet, no big splashes came after Wade returned to the bayou. None of Matt McMahon’s players were going to stick around, leaving the roster empty.

There needs to be a foundation established by Wade. Otherwise, why did he go back to LSU? In reality, what does this say about the school's administration? Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry assumed the role of shell athletic director after football coach Brian Kelly was fired last year. Verge Ausberry eventually filled the role. They had three coaches on payroll between Kelly, Lane Kiffin, and Ed Orgeron last December.

The shuffle between hiring and firing coaches, along with football roster construction, has LSU on the hook for at least $240 million over the next eight years.

For Wade, everything remains very much up in the air at this point.

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