Shortly after learning he and his team would be flying to Salt Lake City, Utah to battle Gonzaga in the opening round of the 2024 NCAA Tournament, McNeese State University men’s head basketball coach Will Wade did what he has done all season.
He kept the focus on his players.
“It’s just been a tremendous day for our guys, our program, everybody involved in Lake Charles (Louisiana) and at McNeese,” Wade said. “I’m so happy for everybody. We tied the largest turnaround in college basketball history. We turned this thing around 19 games, these guys did. It’s incredible.”
Wade continued:
“I wanted these guys (McNeese’s players and staff) and this community and everybody to experience this,” Wade said referring to this past Sunday’s NCAA Tournament selection pairings show. “I wanted everybody to get a chance to be a part of that. It means the world to me.”
McNeese State – the No. 12 seed in the Midwest Region — will take on No. 5 seed Gonzaga at 7:25 p.m., EST at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City. The winner will play the winner of the No. 4 Kansas/No. 13 Samford matchup on Saturday.
McNeese State (30-3) will be making it’s first appearance in The Big Dance for the first time since 2002 and just the third time in school history. Gonzaga (25-7) is ranked 17th in the nation. Thursday night’s game against the Cowboys will mark its 25th consecutive NCAA tournament appearance (26th overall).
The Cowboys, winners of the Southland Conference title with a 17-1 mark, clinched their spot in this year’s NCAA tournament on Sunday with a 92-76 win over Nicholls State in the Southland Conference Tournament championship game.
Wade – unless you have spent the past few years living under a gigantic rock with no access to the Internet – has some big-time baggage.
He was fired as LSU’s head coach prior to the 2022 NCAA Tournament stemming from a federal investigation of college basketball that began in 2017. The probe alleged he committed three Level I NCAA recruiting violations. Wade was handed a two-year show cause penalty and a 10-game suspension, served at the outset of his first season at McNeese in 2023.
During his introductory press conference on March 13, Wade – one of the top tacticians in all of college basketball who can flat out coach – had this to say to the assembled group of reporters.
“I can’t wait to start the largest turnaround in college basketball next season,” Wade said of the 11-23 record of the Cowboys team he inherited when he was hired. “We are going to go from 23 losses to 23-plus wins. Remember I said that.”
Here’s a question.
Who goes to a press conference podium after being forced out of the white-hot glare of college basketball and then predicts a 23-game win turnaround at a place that had not had a winning season in 13 years and hadn’t been to the NCAA Tournament in 23 seasons?
You know who does that?
Wade.
He is brash.
He is stubborn.
He is unapologetic.
He does not care what you think about him.
He’s also bright.
He is charismatic.
Some of his harshest critics say he is arrogant and won’t be able to sustain the overnight success he has built at McNeese?
Maybe he does…maybe he doesn’t.
There are three things about Wade and his coaching acumen that I like that strongly suggest that he not only will continue to win at McNeese, but he will finish his career as one of the game’s most successful coaches, provided he keeps his nose clean stays off the NCAA’s gigantic radar.
First of all, Wade is supremely confident in his coaching ability and that kind of confidence usually permeates and takes root throughout the entire locker room, giving everyone associated with the basketball program a reassuring sense of security knowing that with our guy drawing up the X’s and O’s on the court and running point on recruiting off of it, chances are Superman strong that we will be in every ball game we play.
Secondly, and apologies to McNeese State, but Wade in all probability will within the next 18 months be lured away by a bigger program which plays in a Power 5 conference – one that’s got big bread, bigger facilities and a huge support staff, much like the school he was fired from in Baton Rouge.
And thirdly, Wade has won every place he has been. At Chattanooga, he went 40-25 overall & 27-7 in the Southern Conference; at Virginia Commonwealth, Wade was 51-20 overall & 28-8 in the Atlantic 10 Conference; and at LSU, Wade was 105-51 overall & 55-33 in the SEC. He has been a winning coach every place he has been and following his deliriously successful debut at McNeese State, there is nothing associated with Wade that suggests that he won’t be anything but a winner moving forward.
The Cowboys are riding into the postseason with the nation’s third-longest winning streak at 11 games and are just one of four teams in the nation with at least 30 wins (No. 1 Houston, 30; No. 2 UConn, 31; and James Madison with 31).
The 19-game turnaround – which matched the NCAA record for a single-season turnaround in men’s college basketball history – is impressive. Hell, winning 19 games more than you did the previous year is quite an accomplishment no matter what the game is be it cards, marbles, jacks, pickle ball, ping pong or college basketball.
Here is what I do know.
Wade can scheme it up with college basketball’s elite coaches. He clearly understands the nuances of the game. He can recruit, his teams play hard, and his kids love playing for him because he is open and honest with them – a vital necessity in today’s college basketball landscape.
His detractors will always be there. But none of that matters because Wade does not care and he’s not listening anyway.
