LSU's Mwani Wilkinson becomes 11th Tigers' player to enter transfer portal

LSU lost its 11th player to the transfer portal on Friday, with sophomore Mwani Wilkinson opting to leave the program. Freshman forward Alex Fudge entered the portal earlier on Friday.

In a fairly unprecedented situation, that now leaves new head coach Matt McMahon with zero scholarship players from this past season still on the roster.

LSU fired Will Wade on March 12 after the school received an NCAA notice of allegations detailing seven Level I violation allegations in the men's basketball program. In the three weeks since Wade's departure, 11 players have entered the transfer portal, two players left for the NBA draft and all four commitments in the 2022 and 2023 classes reopened their recruitments.

Wilkinson (4.0 PPG) and Fudge (3.3) followed Eric Gaines (9.0), Efton Reid (6.3), Justice Williams (1.7), Bradley Ezewiro (1.6), Adam Miller (missed season with injury), Jerrell Colbert (0.5), Shareef O'Neal (2.9), Xavier Pinson (9.8) and Brandon Murray (10.0) into the portal. Tari Eason (16.9) and Darius Days (13.7), the team's top two scorers, were the players to declare for the NBA draft, while Julian Phillips (No. 11 in 2022), Yohan Traore (No. 36), Devin Ree (No. 78) and Marvel Allen (No. 14 in 2023) all decommitted.

When McMahon was introduced as LSU's head coach last week, he was asked about keeping the current roster in place.

«That's the most important thing here and we've hit the ground running,» McMahon said. «We're gonna invest a lot of time with our players. I want people who want to be here, want people who want to be a part of something special because that's what we're gonna build here.»

McMahon is now forced to build his first roster in Baton Rouge entirely from scratch, but he has already landed three