'Conventional' approach paying off for LSU head coach Will Wade after landing 2027 5-star commit Reese Alston

Alston's addition is a major boon for Wade, one of college basketball's most controversial figures after previously being ensnared in a recruiting scandal from his first run as LSU coach that led to his dismissal in 2022. He resurfaced at McNeese in 2023 then spurned NC State, who he coached for one season, to return to LSU in March.

Despite Wade's less-than-stellar reputation, Alston backed his future head coach on Thursday, adding in comments to ESPN, "The internet makes Coach Wade out to be somebody that he's not. He's kept his word and showed up to all my games that he said he would. He made me a priority."

This offseason, Wade's No. 1 priority was simply getting enough bodies to fill out his 2026-27 roster. Earlier this month, the roster on the official team website only listed four players as several potential options sat in limbo with uncertain statuses for the upcoming season, which tips Nov. 2.

"What we're doing is unconventional," Wade told reporters in September about his collection of European pros and five-year seniors (h/t ESPN). "It may not work. If it doesn't, write about what an idiot I am." 

The 12-year college coaching veteran added that his makeshift 2026 roster was a one-year experiment — "If we're bad," Wade reckoned, "we just got to live through one more bad year. We've had a few of them" — and that beginning with the 2027 class, "We'll do it conventionally and we'll get a bunch of high school five-stars and go do what we do."

He nabbed one of those five-stars on Thursday in a major win for the traditional method of operations. It's going to take a year, but Wade's squad will soon resemble what a college basketball roster is supposed to look like. When it does, it's shaping up to be one of the nation's best.