The former Long Beach State big man was set to bring an established track record as an elite rebounder.
First the news from the most reliable source possible: the coach.
Last Wednesday, Lassina Traore suffered a season ending knee injury in our practice.
Lassina was a starter on this year’s team. He had a great summer and preseason, where he improved his game as much as any player in our program. He emerged to be our team’s best rebounder, low…
— Sean Miller (@CoachMillerXU) October 14, 2024
Traore averaged a double double in Big West last season and helped Long Beach State to a 15 seed in the NCAA Tournament and was likely to play a major role in Xavier’s massively experienced front court alongside Zach Freemantle, Jerome Hunter, and John Hugely IV.
This leaves Xavier with a question mark in their front court for the second summer in a row and their limited success at addressing last summer’s caused many of the issues that ended up detailing their season a year ago. With Freemantle and Hunter returning and Daylin Swain hoping to make a jump to a larger role as a Sophomore, Xavier is likely better equipped to meet this challenge than last year’s, but this remains far from being good news.