After months of legal wrangling, public excoriating and unprecedented threats of Southeastern Conference excommunication, at least one part of the saga is over at LSU.
The school decided last month against rostering — a new verb for me, as I’m sure for many of you — former NFL training campers Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris in football.
On Tuesday, during LSU’s non-trip to SEC basketball media days, we learned men’s basketball isn’t rostering former NBA minor-leaguer RJ Luis, either.
LSU, the home of Heisman winners and basketball immortals, is not going to be the home of former pro football and basketball players looking for a second, potentially lucrative lease on their college careers. LSU apparently will make peace with former Heisman winner Jayden Daniels before pros such as Wright, Harris and Luis get to suit up there.
Men’s basketball coach Will Wade confirmed Tuesday that Luis won’t be a Tiger going forward. He previously practiced with the team but didn’t play in its 63-60 exhibition win Thursday at McNeese State.
“We’re going to follow all the SEC protocols with him,” Wade said.
Did LSU have much choice? The SEC threatened severe penalties for teams that would put players who have signed NFL, NBA or WNBA contracts on their rosters. For LSU, that even escalated one DEFCON level further, with SEC membership reportedly considering whether to throw charter member LSU out of the league.
Apparently the SEC is still holding the threat of expulsion in the most recent version of its federal lawsuit against LSU, but frankly that would be the definition of overkill now that Luis is not playing. The SEC is keeping this up because LSU gave it the perfect test case for establishing its long sought-after self-governance.
First, Lane Kiffin decided not to bring on Wright and Harris — though injuries like the one to tight end Trey’Dez Green have shown the Tigers definitely could have used them.
Luis was an even bigger difference-maker. He was the Big East Player of the Year at St. John’s two seasons ago. With him, and all the other transfers Wade has/has tried to land, the Tigers could well have been a top-15 team going into this season.
I had sympathy for Wright and Harris. Yes, both signed with NFL teams — Harris was briefly with the Saints, whose 1-4 start shows they may need him more than LSU did — but neither ever played in a real game. Luis, on the other hand, decided to forgo his final year of college eligibility at St. John’s to turn pro before signing with both the Jazz and Celtics.
Wright and Harris were caught in between the athletes granted a fifth year because of the COVID pandemic and those who now compete under the NCAA’s new “five for five” eligibility rule. But Luis made a conscious grab for the NBA money and missed.
LSU and Wade made the smart decision to walk away from him, despite the huge impact Luis could have made on their season.
LSU is still waiting to see whether former UCLA players Skyy Clark and Donovan Dent will get their temporary restraining order upheld, granting them and about 70 other athletes across the country a fifth year of eligibility. Without them, LSU looks like a long shot to make the NCAA Tournament this season. But as Wade said in his Wade way, what’s one more bad year for LSU men’s basketball after the past four seasons under former coach Matt McMahon?
A bigger question is whether all this fight was worth it for LSU overall. The answer is not at all. Again, Luis could have made a huge impact, but none of these players in question was worth the school getting dragged through the mud or kicked out on its ear. LSU ended up portrayed as a renegade program trying to bend rules to their breaking point. Its relationship with the SEC as a whole has been damaged for years to come.
Meanwhile, the LSU basketball programs couldn’t avoid being the target of jokes, speculation and outright conspiracy theories on social media Tuesday as to why Wade, Kim Mulkey and their players couldn’t make it to Birmingham, Alabama, for SEC media days.
Baton Rouge Metro Airport was reportedly too foggy on Tuesday morning for their charter flight to take off. With 32 sets of men’s and women’s coaches and players converging, the SEC told LSU there was no room at the inn for its group either later Tuesday or Wednesday. So, both coaches and one of their players did Zoom calls instead with reporters.
I live miles away from the Baton Rouge airport, but I can at least confirm that it was quite foggy near LSU on Tuesday morning. The first time I’ve seen fog here literally in months. It was just bad luck, and another thing not worth the risk.
That said, is it possible for anyone involved with LSU to cross the street, much less take a 330-mile flight, without there being some controversy? Criticism? A court injunction?
Maybe the end of the Luis saga is a sign things are finally beginning to settle down at LSU from a “National Story Every Two Hours” situation, but my radar is still scanning for the next big blow up.
