BATON ROUGE — Efficiency and consistency have been two buzzwords for Will Wade and LSU basketball to start the 2026-27 season.

The Tigers showcased signs of both in their dominating 90-50 win over Louisiana Tech on Monday, Nov. 9 inside the comforts of Pete Maravich Assembly Center. They finished shooting 32% from the field as a team while holding the Bulldogs to a season-low of 50 points. In the process of finding more efficiency and consistency, LSU may have also found its bench weapons in center Michael Ruzic and guard Abdi Bashir Jr.

“Look we’ve got eight starters, all those guys can start,” Wade said. “Those guys can all start for a lot of teams. I thought Divine’s (Ugochukwu) a great finisher. Abdi obviously, made four 3s tonight. Ruzic was his normal self. Those guys gave us 40 points, which was huge, but we expect that because we’ve got a lot of depth.”

Ruzic and Bashir were the first two players to enter the game off the bench for the Tigers and the duo immediately got to work.

LSU’s deep ball threat off the bench

Bashir showcased why he’s one of the team’s deep-ball threats, draining a trey in his first minute on the floor. The 6-foot-5 and 175-pounder would go on to lead the Tigers’ three-point shooting, draining four 3s.

Bashir ended the night with 16 points along with a rebound and an assist. Having a sharpshooter like Bashir come off the bench will be key for Wade throughout the season, especially if a starter is in a slump. That’s somewhat the case to start the season with LSU’s starting shooting guard Skyy Clark going 0-for-14 from deep before draining his first trey Monday against Tech.

“We’re a good three-point shooting team,” Bashir said. “Obviously, we're so dominant in the paint that we don’t need to rely on 3s, but when we get open looks, we got guys that can knock them down. I believe in Skyy more than anybody else on the team to knock them down. And it’s only a matter of time before he goes like 6 for 6 from deep in one game.”

So far this season, Bashir is leading the Tigers with 11 made 3-pointers, and finished the Tech contest shooting close to 40% from deep.

The LSU big man you can’t miss

At 7-0, 240, Ruzic is hard to miss and his presence can be felt immediately whenever he’s on the floor. In his first minute on the floor off the bench, he used his length to score a quick layup over a Tech defender.

The rest of the first half for him was an impromptu dunk competition, and Ruzic won every round, finishing the half with nine points. With him taking high percentage shots, Ruzic shot 77% from the field to finish with a team-high 18 points

When he wasn’t making a living in the paint, Ruzic was an asset in transition, snagging five rebounds and getting down the court during the Tigers’ fastbreak possessions.

LSU will need to get another performance like this out of Ruzic, Bashir and its other key players off the bench if it wants to pull off an upset No. 14 Gonzaga on Saturday, Nov. 14.

“We’re going to need to be much better,” Wade said. “Getting out of the little kiddie pool, without our floaters on, and we’re going into the deep end. So we’re going to have to be much improved on Saturday.”