John Fanta
College Basketball Broadcaster and Reporter
As the seconds ticked down inside Amica Mutual Pavilion on Thursday, it was the smiles on display of the hundreds of fans in blue and gold who traveled from Lake Charles, Louisiana that said it all.
It was the joy and jubilation of the McNeese State Cowboys, who had just notched the 6,243-student institution out of the Southland Conference its first-ever NCAA Tournament victory, a 69-67 win over Clemson that saw them build a 31-13 halftime lead and hang on.
It was Will Wade running into the stands to celebrate history with the fans.
This moment wasn’t about what transpired 24 hours earlier when reports surfaced that Will Wade had taken the NC State job. Even though the coaching carousel and transfer portal chaos stops for nobody in college sports, the Cowboys showed why the NCAA Tournament is so unique. In a climate where so many coaches shy away from communicating anything with their players or administrators when they’re being courted by other schools, Wade went the exact opposite route, calling his team into the meeting room this past Saturday and sharing that he was in talks with the Wolfpack about their vacancy.
“There’s no need to lie! You may not like what I’ve got to say, but I’m going to tell you what I think,” Wade said when asked about his different approach to sharing the news with his players before the NCAA Tournament started.
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“We’re all direct, and if you’re like that, there’s very little confusion. It’s who we are: the Bayou Bandits! We operate well when there’s outside noise of, ‘Oh, you’re not going to be focused. You’re not going to be prepared.’ F— that! We’re going to be prepared and focused, and we were by far the more focused team today. All of the narratives and the talk of distractions, it’s just talking points. I could have gone in there and lied to everybody. I told them the truth and people wanted to write off it — so be it! If you don’t know how we operate day to day, then you can’t judge how we do things. We have transparency that most people don’t have.”
That transparency worked to perfection. McNeese came out laser-focused and threw Clemson all out of sorts offensively, with the Cowboys mixing up defenses between man-to-man and zone. For a team that had played man-to-man for 96% of the season according to analytics, it was a bold move by Wade but one that led to Brad Brownell’s veteran team being totally thrown for a loop. Clemson scored just 13 points in the first half, three points shy of the first-half tournament record in the shot clock era.
“If we went man-to-man on a Brad Brownell-coached team, with how tough they are, we were going to get beat,” Wade said.
Instead, McNeese gave Clemson a taste of its own medicine, shocking the Tigers’ system and outscoring a top-20 defensive team on paper 44-24 in the paint and 35-5 in bench points.
Thriving in chaos? Those bench points are primarily because of a guy who has been through a chaotic road, much like Wade in his coaching journey, to reach a moment like this. Brandon Murray, who had only scored over 15 points twice in the season and had a previous season-best of 17, posted as strong of a performance as he’s ever had in his career with a 21-point showing.
The 6-foot-5 senior guard from Maryland started his career with Wade at LSU, playing one season in Baton Rouge before transferring to Georgetown after Wade was fired in 2022 after receiving a notice of allegations from the NCAA that detailed significant misconduct related to recruiting violations. Murray went from the Hoyas to Ole Miss but wasn’t happy, so he ended up back with Wade for his senior season.
“When I got fired, Brandon’s career went down, so I told him that we had to reignite it and finish it off the right way,” Wade said. “He also scored his 1,000th career point today, which was just incredible. I’m really, really pleased with him and really happy with him.”
The art of this upset was born out of a journey like Murray’s, or that of Quadir Copeland, who didn’t get to the level he wanted to at Syracuse and bet on Wade tapping into his best. The 6-foot-6 wing was a matchup problem for Clemson’s defense, going for 16 points, seven rebounds and five assists. Or how about Sincere Parker, a senior who started his college hoops journey at Moberly Area Community College, then went to Saint Louis and is now making history at McNeese.
It’s extremely gratifying for a fifth-year senior like Christian Shumate, who stayed with McNeese when Wade took the job and has been with the program through it all for the last four years. On Thursday, he delivered 13 points and 11 rebounds for his sixth double-double of the season.
“It still feels like a dream,” Shumate said. “I’m sure in a couple of days or when this all is over I’ll wake up and look back at it like, ‘Ok, that really did happen.’ But right now we stay focused, we’re trying to keep on winning games, and we got to this point and we’re looking forward and trying to get on to the next one and keep on moving forward.”
Between the confidence and aggression with which they played and the way they’ve handled Wade’s job status, it’s nothing short of remarkable to see this team stay together and be unfazed by what’s happening around them. But Wade’s unapologetic, honest nature is a huge reason why.
“They all signed up for this and s—, when many of my players committed to me here, they asked, ‘Hey, if you go Power 5, can I go with you?'” Wade said. “Everybody knows what the deal is. There’s no secret to what we all signed up for. I mean, my athletic director and president know the deal. There’s no secret to it. There’s no reason to hide behind it. There’s five coaches negotiating with other schools right now. Villanova’s trying to buy another coach out of the NCAA Tournament right now. It’s all capitalism! That’s the free market of college basketball.”
Between players who have been seeking a home, a student manager who has gone viral and received several NIL endorsement deals, and a coach who has been through a lot of drama but fought on and won over 70% of his games, the Cowboys are riding on with a lot happening.
But, like they said, “we thrive in chaos.”
“I think it would be even better if we go to the Sweet 16,” Copeland said. “It’ll be better on the campus then. Our goal is not to win one game. It’s to do more than that.”
They’ll have that opportunity on Saturday against reigning national runner-up Purdue with a ticket to the Sweet 16 in Indianapolis on the line.
John Fanta is a national college basketball broadcaster and writer for FOX Sports. He covers the sport in a variety of capacities, from calling games on FS1 to serving as lead host on the BIG EAST Digital Network to providing commentary on The Field of 68 Media Network. Follow him at @John_Fanta.
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