BATON ROUGE - Will Wade has officially hired his first staff member for the 2026-2027 basketball season. Long time head coach Rick Stansbury will join Wade as his associate head coach.

The school says in a release:

Stansbury is best known for his stints as head coach at Mississippi State (1998-2012) and Western Kentucky (2016-23).

The 2004 Southeastern Conference Coach of the Year the season State won the regular season championship, Stansbury also has won five SEC Western Division titles, two SEC Tournament titles (2002, 2009) and the Conference USA regular-season crown in 2021. He took teams to 13 postseason tournaments in his 21-year head coaching career.

Stansbury most recently served as an assistant at Memphis for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons.

“I am looking forward to having Rick Stanbury join our coaching staff at LSU,” said Coach Wade. “His time at Mississippi State and Western Kentucky speaks for itself. His solid recruiting classes and his on-floor coaching abilities will help LSU move forward quickly with our basketball program.”  

The winningest coach in Mississippi State basketball history with 293 victories, Stansbury guided 11 teams to tournament appearances (6 NCAA, 5 NIT) and 10 teams to 20-plus win campaigns. His 293 wins at State represents the 11th-most wins in the history of the SEC.

Mississippi State’s 2004 SEC title was the school’s first since the 1962-63 season with a school-best 14-2 league mark and 26-4 overall record. The team was 8-0 in SEC road play, had a No. 4 regular-season national AP ranking and a school-best No. 2 NCAA Tournament seeding.

He became the first coach in the school’s basketball history to record four-consecutive 20-win seasons (doing it twice, in 2002-05 and 2007-10) as well as establishing school firsts with five-straight postseason tournament appearances (2001-05).

Stansbury’s long coaching career began at his alma mater, Campbellsville University, as a student assistant in 1981-82 before serving as a graduate assistant at Cumberland College in Williamsburg, Kentucky (1983-84). His first long-term tenure came the following season when he arrived at Austin Peay.

During his six-years at Austin Peay, he helped guide the team to three consecutive winning seasons with a conference tournament championship and a subsequent NCAA Tournament second round berth during the 1986-87 season while the Governors posted a mark of 20-12.

He then moved to Mississippi State for the 1990-91 season. As an eight-year assistant coach on Richard Williams’ MSU staff, Stansbury previously played an instrumental role in helping Mississippi State secure the talent that enabled the Bulldogs to enjoy their most successful decade ever on the hardwood.

State won the SEC regular season championship in 1991, twice won the SEC West title in 1995 and 1996 and won the SEC Tournament title in 1996. The team advanced to the NCAA Sweet 16 in 1995 and the NCAA Final Four in 1996.

 Stansbury’s proven track record as a tireless recruiter and knowledgeable tactician made him the obvious choice to replace Williams.

Stansbury retired from coaching at Mississippi State at the end of the 2012 season and after two seasons away from the court, was back on the bench for the 2014-15 season as an assistant at Texas A&M for Billy Kennedy. He was later in his second season named Associate Head Coach. During the 2015-16 season, Texas A&M won its first SEC regular season title and the Aggies also advanced to the NCAA Sweet 16.

In March 2016, Stansbury was hired as head coach at Western Kentucky. He led the Hilltoppers to four 20-win seasons, a Conference USA title and an NIT semifinal appearance.

Stansbury coached WKU to 11 victories over power conference teams, including four wins against ranked opponents. From 2017 to 2022, Western Kentucky consistently ranked among the top teams in the conference, finishing either first or second in the conference or conference tournament each year. Western Kentucky achieved top three finishes in C-USA play for four consecutive seasons, the first time they had done so since 1969-72.

In his two years at Memphis, he helped the Tigers win the American Conference regular-season title in 2024-25.