PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Will Wade is telling the truth when he says he doesn’t need to lie. That’s why he says this. All of this. Out loud. Right here in this hallway.
He doesn’t give a single, solitary …
“S—, do you know how many schools are in these guys’ DMs right now?” Wade says, pointing at a drenched locker room, where celebrating McNeese players are still soaking in the first major upset win of this year’s NCAA Tournament. “I mean, damn, this is great for them. Their market just went up in the transfer portal.”
He says all his players know where they stand because he’s told them so. Plans are already in motion. A few McNeese players will probably follow him to NC State next year. Others will go test their value in the transfer portal and likely land elsewhere. A few will maybe stay at McNeese, where the program will try to reload its roster and keep a good thing going under a new coach.
On the outside, no one seems totally sure how to process any of this — the overt, unabashed truth-telling. It’s not normal. Future NC State coach Will Wade bears a striking resemblance to current McNeese head coach Will Wade and the provincialism of college sports makes such a reality feel like an affront to long-held traditions of secrecy and superficial grandstanding. How can you have a dog and pony show if everything is out in the open?
But now go inside.
“Look, they all signed up for this,” Wade continues. “Half of ’em said it when they committed here. ‘Hey, if you go Power 5, can I go with ya?’ I mean, everyone knows what the deal is. This is no secret.”
Wade’s eyes grow larger as his voice gets louder. Now the hands are going, too, waving with each word. The crowd around him is chortling.
“There are five coaches right now negotiating with other schools!” he insists. “I mean, c’mon! It’s true! Villanova is trying to hire a coach out of the NCAA Tournament right now.”
You might not like it, but he ain’t wrong.
That’s why a team that had every reason to be distracted on Thursday instead showed up in Providence and played with the kind of freedom that comes with unsentimental honesty. McNeese looked nothing like the No. 12 seed that it’s billed to be in the NCAA Tournament’s Midwest region. Wade’s team throttled fifth-seeded Clemson in the opening 20 minutes of their first-round matchup. What ended as a narrow 69-67 win was 31-13 at halftime. McNeese led by as many as 24 in the second half, starving Clemson on the defensive end with a mix of zone defense and switch-everything man-to-man looks. Clemson, coming off an 18-2 season in the ACC, watched the game get away from it with long faces and blank stares. McNeese didn’t even play that well offensively, making only four 3s, but used superior athleticism to run, jump and dunk its way to the first D-I NCAA Tournament victory in school history.
That all of this came less than 24 hours after Wade publicly admitted that, yes, he had interviewed for NC State’s vacant head-coaching position was perfectly Will Wadeian. His responses in a Wednesday news conference made immediate headlines, confirming rumors of the mutual interest. Roughly 45 minutes later, reports emerged that not only had Wade interviewed for the NC State job, but that he’d formally agreed on terms to take it.
More headlines. All on the eve of an NCAA Tournament game.
This was, by all measures, a fairly big deal. Everywhere, that is, except for McNeese State.
Let’s back track. Last week, following a Wednesday win over Lamar in the Southland Tournament championship, Wade gave his team off both Thursday and Friday. That window was when conversations picked up between him and the Wolfpack. On Saturday, prior to practice, when he and the team gathered in the program’s film room, Wade updated his players on where things stood. He told them about job interviews, what might be coming, and advised them on their own situations.
Then came this week’s events. On Wednesday afternoon, CAA agents Jimmy Sexton and Evan Daniels, Wade’s representatives, were in real-time conversations with Wolfpack officials during Wade’s news conference. The sides agreed to terms while the Cowboys were on the court in the practice that followed. Wade didn’t know it was done or reported when he picked up his phone to find 311 unread text messages.
“Conversations between people who are not me,” Wade says of those Wednesday meetings.
McNeese players saw the news on social media and collectively shrugged because it wasn’t news to them. Back at the team hotel, Wade called a meeting, gathered everyone together and talked about it all.
As McNeese senior Christian Shumate put it: “When you’re in a loop and both ends are transparent about things, there’s not too much room for conflict. Everybody is aware of everything that’s going on.”
There’s something to be said for everyone being on the same page. It’s just that Wade seemingly packs more onto one page than most writers pack into a career.
“They think I’m too honest,” Wade says.
This won’t play well with Wade’s endless line of detractors. The 2017 FBI investigation and allegations of luring recruits with impermissible payments and his voice on a federal wiretap will follow him forever. He’s regularly called everything from sleazeball to scumbag.
But don’t say that to anyone at McNeese. Wade has done right by the place at every turn. He took a team that finished 11-23 in 2022-23 and won 30 games last season, matching the NCAA record for single-season turnaround in men’s college basketball history (19 games). After a one-and-done trip to the 2024 NCAA Tournament, Wade had options to consider, and could’ve actively looked to jump ship to a better job, but didn’t.
A lot of other coaches would’ve.
Wade was given a second chance at a college coaching career by McNeese athletic director Heath Schroyer and promised him he’d give the school at least two years. He stuck to it. More than that, when negotiating a raise in his first season, Wade happily agreed to a $1 million buyout. It was a foregone conclusion that some school would eventually give Wade a road back to the highest level. The 42-year-old is, right now, ranked seventh in winning rate (70.5 percent) among active coaches with 10 years experience. The names above him? Mark Few, Bill Self, John Calipari, Rick Pitino, Randy Bennett, Sean Miller and Tom Izzo.
“I swear to you, I never once doubted that he was going to come back for the second year,” McNeese president Wade Rousse said Thursday, standing courtside soon after a long hug with Wade. “Even when there were rumors and his name was out there. No chance. We had a two-year plan. It’s been two years. Now we have a full follow-up plan in place for what’s next. We’re ready, and I want what’s best for Coach.”
It’s hard to square when the reputation and the rap don’t totally match reality. That’s Will Wade to the extreme. Some will see him only as the dirtiest coach in the game. At the same time, he might just be the most honest coach in the game. Who else gets asked in a news conference if he’s interviewed with another school and actually answers, yes?
It’s refreshing.
Oddly so.
But refreshing nonetheless.
And now comes a potentially even odder twist. McNeese, the team that ran Clemson off the floor in Thursday’s first half, can keep winning. Beating Purdue in Saturday’s second round is no far-fetched dream. It’s doable, and makes one wonder, if the Pokes keep riding, will the coach stay with them. NC State does, after all, need its new coach to come aboard. The transfer portal is set to open Monday, and things happen fast in this game. The Wolfpack aren’t signing Wade to an eight-figure contract to watch him coach a school from Lake Charles, La.
So it has to be asked.
What happens if you win Saturday?
“What do you mean?” Wade says, raising an eyebrow and grinning a grin. “We keep going.”
And that isn’t complicated?
“The guys ain’t worried about it. I ain’t worried about it. Administration ain’t worried about it. Nobody is worried about it. We were all honest. It’s great. So now let’s keep winning, keep going.”
You might want to believe him.
(Photo of McNeese coach Will Wade: by Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)
