Hiring former LSU basketball coach Will Wade came with no small measure of risk for McNeese State athletic director Heath Shroyer.
“I had a lot of people email me and tell me I was crazy, that I hired someone that’s a criminal,” recalled Shroyer, who wasn’t even sure when he hired Wade a year ago how many games the NCAA would allow him to coach this season.
Now McNeese is 28-3, the No. 1 seed in the Southland Conference tournament and just two victories away from its first NCAA Tournament appearance in 22 years. It’s a stark turnaround for the Cowboys, who went 11-23 a season ago, and Shroyer will take it.
“Coach is a polarizing figure to some, you know, and I think no matter what, some aren’t going to like him,” Shroyer said. “For sure, some of them have come around and some of them haven’t, and that’s OK.”
The Cowboys received a double-bye in the Southland tournament, which is being held in Lake Charles, Louisiana, at McNeese’s 4,200-seat arena. The Cowboys open postseason play in the semifinals Tuesday night.
Wade is not, in fact, a convicted criminal. But he was cited for recruiting violations by the NCAA while at LSU, which hired him in 2017 and fired him in 2022.
He spent a year out of college basketball, consulting for the scouting departments of some NBA teams, before returning to coaching at McNeese — albeit with school and NCAA-mandated restrictions, including a 10-game “show cause” suspension to open the season.
McNeese State coach Will Wade, left, talks with athletic director Heath Schroyer, right, who served as coach for three seasons, and Wade Rousse, vice president for university advancement at McNeese, after the team’s win over New Orleans in an NCAA college basketball game Wednesday, March 6, 2024, in New Orleans. Wade was suspended for the first 10 games of the 2023–24 season by the NCAA but the team went to a 28-3 record and finished first in the Southland Conference. Credit: AP/Matthew Hinton
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