McNeese’s Will Wade claims he recruited players with potential to follow him in the portal

The March Madness Tournament kicked off on Tuesday with the play-in games, and it began with a bang, delivering the madness in true fashion. The second game of the night wasn’t as thrilling, but North Carolina showed the entire country why they deserved to be in the NCAA Tournament.

Upsets are looming large, with many brackets predicting that some top teams would be eliminated in the first round. Alabama wide receiver Ryan Williams made a bold prediction, choosing Tennessee and Auburn to be upset by 15 and 16 seeds, but that didn’t happen. What did unfold was Will Wade’s McNeese Cowboys absolutely demolishing the Clemson Tigers before Clemson made a run to end the game. However, the Cowboys held on, winning by two points.

Wade has been vocal about the head coach opening at North Carolina State, even confirming that he has been in contact with the school.

“Will Wade confirms that he’s been in touch with N.C. State, answering ‘Yes’ to a question about contact with them. And then smiling,” ESPN’s Pete Thamel posted.

This was on Wednesday, before the Cowboys played their game. Then, on Thursday, NBA great Charles Barkley went off on Wade for making everything public.

After the Cowboys’ win on Thursday, Wade spoke with the Field of 68 podcast and made a statement that essentially confirmed he knew this would be his last year at McNeese.

“Half the kids I recruited, I told them, ‘Hey, the goal is to go Power 5 after this year and some of you guys can go with me. We all know what’s up,’” Wade said.

Wade brought in players he believed had the potential to play in one of the bigger NCAA conferences. This is an intriguing recruiting strategy, as he not only bet on himself but also on the players he brought in.

Clemson players react to NCAA Tournament loss

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (FOX Carolina) – The 2024-25 Clemson men’s basketball team cut a 24-point deficit to fight to the finish against No. 12 seed McNeese in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

The Tigers came up two points short in the 69-67 upset Thursday afternoon at the Midwest Region matchup in Providence, RI.

Fifth-seeded Clemson’s season came to an end with a 27-7 overall record, a school record for wins.

Their season ends on a two-game losing streak, tying the longest losing streak the Tigers had all season.

Will Wade Revealed Smart Schematic Change That Helped McNeese Catch Clemson Off-Guard

In the first major upset of this year’s NCAA tournament, No. 12 McNeese State stunned No. 5 Clemson in a 69–67 victory to clinch its first tournament win in program history Thursday afternoon.

Led by coach Will Wade, who will reportedly take over NC State’s basketball program next season, the Cowboys held off a last-minute Tigers rally to march ahead to the Round of 32 where they’ll face No. 4 Purdue on Saturday.

How exactly did Wade orchestrate McNeese’s most important win in school history? The 42-year-old coach shared a smart defensive change he made before the game that may have proved pivotal to the Cowboys’ underdog victory.

Wade spoke with John Fanta after Thursday’s win and revealed that even though the Cowboys had been playing man defense for the entire year, he switched to zone against Clemson:

“You had to junk it up,” Wade said. “You let [Clemson coach Brad Brownell] just run his plays, he’s a phenomenal coach. We went man out of—we ended up switching man out of the zone look after a certain amount of passes. … We had put it in for the conference tournament and we just didn’t use it in the conference tournament.