Gonzaga’s first-ever meeting with LSU comes with plenty of familiar faces and a roster that looks built to test the Bulldogs in a different way than most early-season games do.
Mark Few’s team gets Will Wade’s Tigers on Saturday afternoon at the Spokane Arena, and both programs enter undefeated. LSU has rolled through New Orleans, Texas Southern, and LA Tech by 43, 41, and 40 points, respectively, though those numbers come against teams ranked 285, 330, and 265 at KenPom.
The connection between Few and Wade goes back to the 2024 NCAA Tournament, when Gonzaga knocked off Wade’s McNeese team, 86-65, in the opening round. This time, Wade brings a LSU group that is still coming together but already has a few pieces Gonzaga fans will know well.
That starts in the backcourt with Donovan Dent and Skyy Clark, who were teammates at UCLA last season. Gonzaga beat that UCLA team, 82-72, at Climate Pledge Arena, a game in which Dent put up 12 points, 10 assists, and three blocks, while Clark finished with eight points and five rebounds.
Dent has been electric to open the year for LSU. Through three games, he has 25 assists against just three turnovers, plus ten steals and seven blocks. Clark has had a quieter start, averaging 4.3 points and 3.3 rebounds in 31 minutes per game while shooting 1-16 from three.
Together, they give LSU one of the more seasoned backcourts around, and that shared history matters on a roster that otherwise lacks much continuity.
The Tigers also added wing scorer Abdi Bashir Jr., who averaged 20.1 points per game at Monmouth in 2024-25 and 13.2 points on 44.4% shooting from three the previous season at Kansas State. He’s hitting nearly 38% from deep this year on 9.7 attempts per game, and that kind of volume from the perimeter can force Gonzaga’s defense to stay locked in on the outside, especially with Isiah Harwell and/or Davis Fogle involved in those assignments.
LSU’s frontcourt tells a different story. It’s young in terms of college experience, but massive.
Only one of the Tigers’ rotation bigs, Kentucky transfer Mo Dioubate, has played college basketball before. The others arrived from the international game.
The headliner so far has been 18-year-old Croatian Michzel Ruzic, a 7-foot, 235-pound big man averaging 15.7 points and 7.3 rebounds. He has been nearly automatic around the basket, going 20-for-21 on two-pointers, with most of those finishes coming on dunks or lay-ins at the rim.
LSU also has Saliou Niang and Brice Dessert in the mix. Niang, a 6-foot-7 forward from Senegal, was drafted No. 58 overall by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2025 NBA draft out of Trento in Italy, but chose to start his college career at 22. He has double-doubles in two of LSU’s three games and is averaging 11.7 points, 10.3 rebounds, 3.7 assists, and 3.3 steals.
Dessert is a 6-foot-11, 255-pound French big man who is 23 years old. He spent last season with Anadolu in Turkey and previously played for Strasbourg in France, where former Zag Ben Gregg is entering his second professional season.
That gives LSU a front line that could be one of the toughest Gonzaga sees all season, even if the Tigers still haven’t been tested much yet.
For Gonzaga, the response starts inside. Massamba Diop, Braden Huff, and Izan Almansa will all matter against LSU’s size and physicality. Almansa missed the home opener against New Mexico State with a calf injury, and his health looms large here, especially with his rebounding and experience potentially becoming even more important if Diop runs into foul trouble against a team that gets to the line often.
Another matchup worth watching is in the backcourt, where Dent and Xaivian Lee meet as two of the best fifth-year senior point guards in the country. Both were strongly tied to Gonzaga this offseason, and Lee ultimately landed in Spokane. How he handles Dent will be a talking point regardless of how Saturday plays out.
Gonzaga and LSU tip at 12:30 PM PT on Nov. 14 at the Spokane Arena, with the game set for USA Network.
In Other News...
Gonzaga Is About To See How Real LSUs Early Surge Is
LSU rolled through the opening stretch of its season with a roster that finally looks settled after an offseason full of uncertainty, and the Tigers have done it with the kind of defensive edge that tends to travel. The early schedule has not offered much resistance, but the pieces are starting to fit around a group that includes Donovan Dent and Michael Ruzic, while coach Will Wade has already had to navigate the usual candid press conferences and the lingering questions that came with roster eligibility issues.
What Gonzaga will see next is a team that has looked dominant against weaker opponents but still has a few obvious wrinkles to iron out. LSU has defended with intensity, yet the outside shot has not come easily, which makes the matchup more interesting than the record alone suggests. For the Bulldogs, this is a chance to find out whether the Tigers' fast start is built on something sturdier than early blowouts. [Read more 🡒]
Gonzaga Already Looks Dangerous Thanks To One Early Difference
Early nonconference play has already offered a useful snapshot of where the Pac-12s top teams stand, and Gonzaga has wasted little time making its usual case under Mark Few. The Bulldogs have started cleanly, looked organized on both ends and, as always, appear capable of turning a strong opening stretch into something bigger once the schedule tightens. Around them, Utah State has leaned on an experienced roster to get rolling, San Diego State has flashed promise with a young group, and Colorado State is still sorting through a roster with plenty of new faces and a few familiar ones trying to settle the tone.
For Gonzaga, the early edge has been less about flash than about how quickly the pieces have fit together. Fews teams tend to reveal their identity early, and this one already looks dangerous because it has avoided the usual early-season slippage that can slow even elite programs. The next few games should tell us more about how real that edge is, especially with tougher tests looming for a team that already looks ahead of the curve. [Read more 🡒]