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Report: Lassina Traore cleared for basketball activities, on his way to return to full contact

by: Keenan Womack07/01/25
Lassina Traore
Lassina Traore (Rob Gray-Imagn Images)

Today, Jon Rothstein announced on Twitter/X that Xavier transfer Lassina Traore has been fully cleared for all basketball related activities and is expected to return to full contact work in late July or early August per Texas head coach Sean Miller. The big man averaged 11.9 points and 10.3 rebounds two seasons ago for Long Beach State, shooting 52.4% from the field and recording 1.3 steals + blocks per game.

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Upon transferring to Xavier, Traore suffered a serious knee injury before the 2024-25 season’s start, which occurred during in an October practice, keeping him out for the entire year. Miller was quoted as saying that Traore would have been a starter for the Musketeers, noting his role as a “tone setter” and the “team’s best rebounder.”

“Lassina, for us, would have been our starting five-man. He would have been our starting center. We brought him to Xavier from Long Beach State to be our starting center, and he suffered a season-ending injury in October,” Miller said at SEC Spring Meetings. “So right now, he’s almost eight months post-surgery, which is good. All that difficulty, especially the first six months, is behind him, and he’ll rejoin us at some point full-speed this summer. He’s older, and I think he’s a good one-two punch with Matas (Vokietaitis), because Matas is still young in his development.”

Considering the problems regarding the Texas front court last season, adding Traore to the mix of players that includes fellow Xavier transfer Dailyn Swain and FAU center Matas Vokietaitis gives them a significantly more physical group of players around the basket.

Standing at 6-foot-10 and weighing 245 pounds, Traore provides muscle as well as the ability to finish plays in the paint. A team that finished 11th in offensive rebounding and ninth in total rebounding in the SEC last season, Texas needed to increase both size and toughness at the rim, something that the addition of Traore will help them achieve.

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The Longhorns start their season November 4 against Duke in Charlotte, North Carolina.

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