PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The transparency king of college basketball was rewarded for his candidness on Thursday.
Because what’s happening with Will Wade and McNeese is basically unprecedented in these ever-paranoid times in the sport.
Every March, there are hot-name coaches who guide their teams to this tournament. Privately, as this is happening, they and their agents talk to other schools about the prospect of taking another job. It’s quite literally what’s transpiring elsewhere with a number of vacancies right now.
Normally, everyone keeps it hush-hush — or at least tries to until the jig is forced to be up.
With Wade, there is no jig. He is jig-less. The most publicly honest coach in the sport has not run nor hid from a would-be awkward situation. Instead, he’s leaned into the blunt truth (what a concept!) and it’s helped his McNeese Cowboys make history in the process. Wade is in line to be the next coach at NC State. We only know this because he hasn’t tried for a second to make anyone think otherwise.
Going into Thursday’s game against fifth-seeded Clemson, plenty thought that a supposedly distracted McNeese team might get pushed out by a 27-6 Tigers team that won more games this season than any previous one in its history.
Nope.
McNeese refused to have its season end Thursday. Wade’s 12th-seeded Cowboys upset Clemson 69-67 to improve to 28-6 and advance to Saturday’s second round, where No. 4 Purdue awaits. It’s the school’s first NCAA Tournament win ever and it’s the Southland Conference’s first NCAA conquest of an ACC opponent — ever.
“We’re not worried about any of that stuff,” Wade said outside the team’s locker room, re: NC State. “I mean, here’s the thing: We can sit here and lie about it, but it is what it is. Our guys aren’t worried about it, I ain’t worried about it, none of our administration’s worried about it, nobody’s worried about it. We’ve been honest…
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