Will Wade continued to make progress on the eligibility status of international players on his roster.

Brice Dessert was cleared by the NCAA on Tuesday, a source with knowledge of the program told The Advocate. The 23‑year‑old French center is now eligible to play for Wade and the Tigers this 2026-27 season.

This comes after his teammate Saliou Niang was also cleared by the NCAA more than three hours earlier.

Dessert and Niang should both be able to participate in the Tigers’ last exhibition game at Florida State at noon on Saturday, after sitting out the first two contests.

Dessert, a 6-foot-11 center, averaged 8.7 points, 3.3 rebounds, 1.3 blocks and 1.0 turnovers in 23 games for Anadolu Efes, a Turkish team, in the Basketball Super League this season. He also shot 80.6% from the field and 55.2% from the free-throw line, playing 18.8 minutes per game. His team was 20-10 in the BSL.

He is also coming off his first season in the EuroLeague, the most competitive league outside of the United States. In 17 games for Anadolu Efes, he averaged 9.0 points on 62.9% field-goal shooting, 2.5 rebounds and 0.5 blocks in 12.9 minutes. Dessert’s best game was a 16-point outing in a loss to Maccabi Tel Aviv. He shot 7-of-9 overall and had five rebounds, all offensive, in 19 minutes.

LSU, which has yet to finalize an official roster, has 10 players listed on its site before news of Dessert and Niang’s eligibility being decided.

Wade also has two other international players signed for the upcoming season. The other player that was cleared previously was 20-year-old Croatian center Michael Ruzic, who played in LSU’s exhibition games. He was cleared hours before the Tigers’ game against McNeese State Oct. 8.

The last overseas player waiting to get cleared is Israeli center Gilad Levy.

Wade was asked about Dessert along with two other international commits during his first media availability since his hiring in March and said that the big reminds him of one of his former players at LSU.

“They all bring something different,” Wade said Sept. 23. “They bring some much-needed height, some much-needed physicality. You know, Ruzic’s more skilled. Brice is much more around the basket. Niang reminds you kind of Tari Eason. Very, very similar to him.”

The rest of the roster is expected to include fifth-year UCLA transfer guards Donovan Dent and Skyy Clark, Kentucky transfer forward Mo Dioubate, Michigan State transfer guard Divine Ugochukwu, Kansas State transfer guard Abdi Bashir and UTSA transfer guard Austin Nunez.

Wade played only six players in LSU’s most recent exhibition against Central Florida last Wednesday. When he was asked for an update on the eligibility of some of those who didn’t play, he said he won’t comment on the topic, citing the Southeastern Conference’s latest filing in federal court, which quoted him last month.

“I would love to update you, but because all my words are being used against us, I'm not going to,” Wade said in the postgame news conference. “I'm not trying to be a jerk. I'm not. I’m not going to talk anything about eligibility right now just because of the situation that we've got. I'm not trying to play coy or anything like that.”

The Tigers open their regular season against LSU New Orleans on Nov. 3 at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.