Sports
Will Wade Says LSU Has 15 Players But Won't Tell Anyone Who They Are
By Michael Yappaport, . BSN Network. Satire.
BATON ROUGE, La. -- Will Wade, head coach of the LSU men's basketball program, told reporters this week that the team has 15 players on its roster. He then refused to say who any of them are.
That is the whole story. That is where we are.
Wade made the announcement, if you can call it that, with the confidence of a man who has just solved something. Fifteen players. He knows. They exist. They are, presumably, in Louisiana. What more do you need.
What you need, Will, is names. We need names. This is a public university. This is a sport. These are human beings who play basketball in front of other human beings, and the people watching would like to know who they are watching. That is the entire premise of following a team. You do not get to opt out of that.
"We've got 15 guys," Wade told reporters, which is the kind of sentence you use when you are describing a moving company you hired and cannot fully vouch for.
Fifteen guys. Terrific. Fifteen guys who do what, Will? Where are they from? What do they do when they have the ball? Are any of them tall? Do any of them have a name that ends in a vowel, just to narrow it down? Anything. Give me anything.
LSU issued no roster. No names, no numbers, no hometowns, no positions, no photos. The official depth chart for the LSU Tigers men's basketball team is currently a number. The number is 15. That is all of it.
I have seen more transparency from a company that just laid off eight hundred people. I have seen more disclosure from a man who backed into someone's car in a parking garage. The parking garage guy left a note. Will Wade left a headcount.
For the record, this is not a new look for Wade. The man has a history of operating at the intersection of college basketball and "actually, let's not get into it." He coached at LSU before, left under circumstances he also did not particularly feel like explaining at the time, came back, and has now decided that the most basic administrative fact about his program, the list of the players on it, is classified.
The NCAA has rules about rosters. The SEC has rules about rosters. The state of Louisiana has a public records law. And yet here we are, staring at a number, which is 15, wondering if any of the 15 can shoot.
The Tiger Athletic Foundation, reached for comment, did not respond, which honestly tracks.
Somewhere in Baton Rouge right now there are 15 young men who woke up this morning as members of a Division I basketball roster that the head coach of their team will not confirm contains them specifically. That is a strange way to start a season. That is a strange way to start anything.
Will Wade has 15 players.
Good for all 15 of them, whoever they are.
The story we are making fun of: https://frontofficesports.com/article/lsu-mens-basketball-will-wade-roster-players-2026/