The Divine Ugochukwu era in East Lansing was short-lived but the ex-Spartan decided to seek greener pastures in Baton Rouge with the ever-controversial Will Wade.
Michigan State fans have seen this movie before.
Tre Holloman decided to transfer after the 2024-25 season in which Michigan State won the Big Ten title and made an Elite Eight, and he opted to play for Wade at NC State. That went about as well as you could imagine as the Wolfpack flamed out early in the NCAA Tournament and Holloman didn’t have the season he expected and was promised.
So far, however, Ugochukwu seems to be enjoying his time at LSU, but that could soon change if the first exhibition game is a sign of what we can expect from the Tigers.
LSU opened exhibition play with McNeese on Thursday and Ugochukwu led all Tigers with 18 points on 6-of-10 shooting and he played a team-high (tied with Donovan Dent) 39 minutes.
All of this just to beat McNeese by only three points.
The box score from LSU’s 63-60 exhibition win over McNeese 👀
— The Field of 68 (@TheFieldOf68) October 9, 2026
Thoughts? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/7cWiCqWHde
While his shooting numbers were solid, he can’t expect to lead LSU to many wins this season with a 0-to-3 assist-to-turnover margin. His scoring made up for the lack of assists but with four guys in double figures, it’s surprising that he didn’t even have one considering he’s a combo guard.
It’s going to be a long season for Ugochukwu under Wade at LSU. We’ll see if they’ll even be able to field a team for the season opener.
Four players were listed as eligible in the days leading up to the game and only seven played. Not a great look for the Tigers.
Divine Ugochukwu gave it all up for a couple of extra minutes
Ugochukwu could have had it all at Michigan State. While he is probably being compensated handsomely at LSU, he could have been paid decently well as Michigan State and he would have been on one of the top title contenders in college basketball.
Instead, he chose to play a few extra minutes at LSU while leading one of the worst teams in the SEC. The Tigers are not going to be very good this season, especially if they don’t get certain played deemed eligible before the opener.
It’s going to be a struggle for Ugochukwu’s Tigers, but I guess as long as he’s scoring at a high clip and getting exposure, it’ll be worth it for his career aspirations.
Ugochukwu will be playing his basketball this season for a snake-oil salesaman head coach on a team that can barely piece together a full starting lineup. Let’s hope he has better luck than Holloman did.
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