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McNeese’s two-year spin on the Will Wade thrill ride came to an end Saturday as the No. 12 seed Cowboys fell 76-62 to No. 4 seed Purdue in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Wade is set to replace Kevin Keatts as NC State’s head coach after leading the Cowboys through their greatest chapter in program history.
Prior to his arrival, the program had posted 11 consecutive losing seasons and hadn’t been to the Big Dance since 2002. But McNeese took a chance on Wade, who was fired at LSU in 2022 amid FBI and NCAA probe’s into impermissible recruiting tactics.
He needed a place to rehabilitate his coaching career, and McNeese provided the perfect launching pad. Wade immediately elevated the level of talent and guided the program to its winningest season of all-time in 2023-24, posting a 30-4 mark with a first-round NCAA Tournament loss to No. 5 seed Gonzaga.
This season, the Cowboys totaled 28 victories, including their first-ever NCAA Tournament win over No. 5 seed Clemson in Thursday’s first round. Though McNeese was outmatched from the start on Saturday against the Boilermakers, it was nevertheless a successful season for the Southland Conference’s regular-season and tournament champions.
Here’s everything Wade had to say after his team’s second-round NCAA Tournament loss.
Q. On a personal note, before you got to McNeese, were you a believer in second chances? And now having gotten one and succeeding in it, what does that feel like for you?
WADE: Yeah, I’m a believer in second chances. A lot of people in our program are second chances … myself, the players. That’s kind of why we’re close. We got a lot of stuff that bonds us together, and so I’m a big believer in it and hopefully we did right by the people who gave us a second chance.
Q. Obviously very emotional walking off the court and right now as well. Just talk about these past two years and this season and this week.
WADE: I mean, incredible. (Tearfully) Today’s tough. We went 40-2 in the league. I don’t care what league you are in, that’s hard to do. 58-11 in two years. That’s these guys. To be able to win a game, it just took so much out of us. We didn’t have the pop today. I’m not making excuses. Purdue had a lot of pop and they played us well. Just to see our guys come together, see our guys represent our school, represent our area so well. It’s just been phenomenal but it’s just been, I mean, 40-2 in the league is tough to do. Never lost a home game in the league. Great fans. Most of the time you lose a tournament, fans are ready to fire you. Our people were … awesome.
Q. Will, what are the next steps with North Carolina State?
WADE: I’ll worry about that tomorrow. Look, I’m an honest guy but today I want to put a bow on everything with McNeese if we can. That’ll be up to whatever else happens. Now I want to worry about McNeese. Not to try to give out a canned answer, Pat, but this is about our players and McNeese now. We’re not flying back until tomorrow morning. We’ll enjoy this here and when we get back, we’ll figure out next steps. But I do want to say whatever happens, our program at McNeese is in great shape. We have tremendous leadership. We’re not dumb. We have a plan to keep this program rolling, whoever is at the helm, and this program is going to keep moving in the right direction. This program is going to keep winning and I really believe we’re just getting started.
Q. Coach, we talked a lot about this place and how much has the town meant to you, not the basketball but the town. How much will you always be a part of the basketball program?
WADE: Well, hopefully I’ll be part of the program. You know, the town, everybody, just incredible. Incredible. I think I needed somewhere that was going to embrace me and the town needed somebody to embrace them. It just worked. I can’t explain how. I guess the winning helps, but it worked. Just unforgettable. The town embraced our players. Most of you guys haven’t been there, but our players are all over billboards all over town. It’s like a little NBA team in our town. It’s crazy how the town has embraced our guys and it’s changed our university.
It’s going to change our university. It’s changed it already. It’s going to continue to do that but the program, we have great leadership. The program is in good hands. It’s going to keep moving forward and hopefully when they remember us, we’re the people who kind of got it kick started. When you think about it, we were one of the 30 worst teams in the country and we’re in the round of 32. Pretty good job by a lot of people to do that in two years. Most importantly, our players.
Q. If you could, just talk about specifically Christian Shumate and Javohn Garcia, what they mean to you personally and to the McNeese State program.
WADE: It’s hard to have perspective on that. Shu was here four years through the lowest of the lows and the highest of the highs. Just incredible. He believed in us and came back. It’s not like we — he believed in us and came back and Garcia has been so steady for the two years with us and hopefully he’s going to get a third. We have to look at how the ruling works with the JUCO stuff. I believe he’s in line for another year. I’m hopeful he’s in line for another year but we have to look at all that and help him.
Shu is everything you want. He transferred in from Tulsa after his freshman year but how many kids stay at the same school for four years now? That’s a rare deal. Him and Garcia and Parker came in on the second year, but him and Garcia believed in us when there wasn’t a whole lot to believe in.
We were selling a vision that this is what we can do. This is what we can be, but if you listen to us and you didn’t know us, you think, yeah, those guys are morons. Like all y’all thought when I said we were going to win 23 games … Garcia and Shumate, they believed in us when there was no proof in concept. It was easier for some of the other guys to jump on board, but there was no proof of concept when they jumped on board and believed in us, so just forever appreciative of those guys, and I think our community is certainly appreciative of them as well.
