News: LSU Basketball to Play Sam Houston State Without Coach Will Wade

LSU will move forward with it's scheduled game against Sam Houston State but will be without coach Will Wade. The team announced that assistant coach Bill Armstrong will coach the Tigers as Wade is quarantining due to COVID-19 contact tracing issues.

The fourth year coach of the Tigers tested positive for COVID-19, The Advocate's Sheldon Mickles reports.

The Tigers are gearing up for the busiest portion of the non-conference schedule with four games over the next eight days. LSU had to cancel its scheduled trip to Atlanta on Dec. 12 for a game against USF because of contact tracing issues with the program.

With a game scheduled against UNO on Wednesday and having to cancel the South Florida game over the weekend, Wade said the team was thrown out of rhythm a little bit after a 3-1 start to the season.

"We did get thrown out of rhythm a little bit. We were in a very, very good rhythm,” Wade said. “A lot of basketball is rhythm and chemistry and being able to stay in that. In the past, it’s really around Christmas when we’ve been able to take off. I felt like in the last week we’d started our initial takeoff.

“It’s been a bit of a disruption, but it hasn’t affected any of our players," Wade said. “It’s full steam ahead. We’ve got two in three days with Sam Houston and New Orleans."

LSU will have forward Josh Leblanc available for today's matchup as he's now eligible to play since the semester has ended. Wade also said the team will try to ramp up Charles Manning's minutes against Sam Houston State after he saw his first action against Louisiana Tech.