Ex-LSU 'Gangster' Will Wade Back In Black At NCAA Tournament Vs. Goody Gonzaga
America loves a comeback story.
America also tends to love outlaws and mafia gangster movies.
Well, America is really going to love the comeback story of NCAA outlaw and so-called American Gangster "Willy The Kid" Wade, the fired and exiled former LSU men's basketball coach who is back in black and in the NCAA Tournament.
Wade, whose given name is Willl, has been shootin' up the Southland Conference and other outposts in his first season as coach of the McNeese State Cowboys in Lake Charles, La. - 35 miles east of the Texas line. But "Cowboys" is an alias. The basketball team after Wade's arrival a year ago soon adopted the name "Bayou Bandits," even doing a promotional photo shoot with cowboy hats and horses at a nearby ranch.
Their loot so far is a glimmering 30-3 record - second only to defending national champion and No. 1 seed Connecticut and No. 12 seed James Madison at 31-3. The Bandits rode through the Southland to win the title by three games at 17-1 and lead the nation in scoring margin at a whopping 18.9 a game. McNeese took the conference tournament with two easy wins at home for the automatic NCAA Tournament bid.
McNeese State men's basketball coach Will Wade in outlaw garb as leader of the "Bayou Bandits." (McNeese State athletics).
No. 12 seed McNeese has reached only its third NCAA Tournament in history after opening round losses in 1989 and 2002. The Bandits play goody-goody No. 5 seed Gonzaga (25-7), which is in its 25th consecutive NCAA tournament after its third Elite Eight finish last season along with two Final Four finishes in the 2017 and '21 national title games.
Tip-off for McNeese and Gonzaga is Thursday in the Midwest Regional in Salt Lake City (7:25 p.m., CBS). Gonzaga is favored by 6.5 points, but McNeese is a popular pick to lasso the upset. CBS' Seth Davis even picked the Bandits to ride to the Sweet 16 round with a win over Gonzaga and then No. 4 seed Kansas (22-10), which plays No. 3 seed Samford (29-5) in the first round.
Sure as shootin', the ever-confident and often cocky Wade believes his transfer portal posse has a chance. With just one returnee from last year's 11-23 and 6-12 team, McNeese has tied the NCAA record for largest one-year turnaround at 19 wins. Ohio State first-year coach Jim O'Brien went 8-22 and 1-15 in the Big Ten in 1997-98, then flipped that by 19 to go 27-9 and 12-4 the next year and reached the Final Four. Wade gave McNeese its first winning season since 2012 this season and has broken the record for most wins in a season. Before Wade, McNeese won 32 games in the previous three seasons combined.
Will Wade: McNeese Doesn't Need Super Human Play
All that leads to confidence.
"We need our best players to perform up to their capabilities," Wade said. "If they do that, the good news is we don't have to have a super human performance. It'd be nice. But we don't have to have one, if we just play up to our standards and abilities and give ourselves a shot."
Gonzaga under coach Mark Few since 1999 is seventh in the nation in scoring at 84.9 a game and fourth in scoring margin at 15.9.
"They're always elite in transition," Wade said. "So our transition defense is going to be critical. They play at one of the fastest paces - one of the best tempo teams in the country. His teams always look like they're shot out of a rocket in transition."
McNeese State is fifth in the nation in points allowed at 61.5, so hold on to your cowboy hats.
"We need to have a lot of things go well for us to win," said Wade, whose always brimming approach has rubbed off.
"It's pretty big man, a small school getting into the big leagues," Texas-Arlington-then-TCU transfer senior guard Shahada Wells of Amarillo, Texas, said. "Just gettin' there and trying to win a couple games, and really try to win it all. Not just win a couple. In my mind, we can win it all."
McNeese has played "big league" ball throughout this season. The Bandits beat NCAA Tournament No. 12 seed Alabama-Birmingham, 81-60, on Nov. 28 in Birmingham and defeated NIT-bound Virginia Commonwealth in Richmond on Nov. 6. The home sellouts started happening regularly after McNeese won at Michigan, 87-76, on Dec. 29.
Junior forward Christian Shumate, the only returning player from last year, is an ESPN highlight star for his dunks.
"It's a big stage," said Shumate, a Chicago native who transferred three years ago from Tulsa. "It'll be good to show how good a team we are and put everybody on notice that we are a real force to be reckoned with, no matter who we're playing.
The game matches one of the NCAA's biggest villains in recent years in Wade and one of its squeaky cleanest in Few.
LSU Won Big Under Will Wade Before Investigations
Wade won big at LSU quickly in his second season in 2018-19 at 25-5 and 15-2. But he wasn't on the floor when the Tigers clinched the Southeastern Conference regular season title at 16-2 that March 9, and he missed the SEC Tournament and NCAA Tournament. Because LSU suspended him indefinitely on March 8 for not cooperating with LSU or NCAA officials in an investigation of major recruiting violations by Wade.
The NCAA linked Will Wade to five of the most serious Level I violations while he was LSU's coach from 2017-22 (Getty Images).
On March 7, 2019, Yahoo.com broke a story about a widespread FBI investigation of college basketball. It featured Wade on wiretap talking about a "strong-ass offer" to then-Baton Rouge area high school five-star recruit Javonte Smart the previous summer, among other revelations. After that offer, Smart signed with LSU over Kentucky and UCLA. That was the beginning of the end at LSU for Wade with the pre-NIL NCAA by just two years.
While discussing recent players he recruited illegally on tape, he actually bragged about previous players he recruited in the same manner.
The gangster image of Wade began to blossom on March 31, 2020, when HBO aired a documentary called "The Scheme" about the FBI investigation, starring Wade and the "strong-ass offer" comment in his words after Wade and LSU fans had denied it vehemently.
"Will Wade is definitely a (expletive deleted) GANGSTER for what he did," FBI-investigated college basketball talent broker Christian Dawkins said in the documentary. It was Dawkins with whom Wade was caught on tape discussing recruiting tactics.
"That's the only way you can interpret someone in a head coaching position saying that they made a strong-ass offer," Dawkins said in the documentary. "He ain't talking about a scholarship offer, bro. One-hundred percent talking about money."
Will Wade Guided LSU To 3 NCAA Tournaments, Coached In 1
After Smart and other major recruits whom Wade acquired under questionable circumstances led LSU to the NCAA Tournament in 2021, LSU fired Wade on March 12, 2022. This was just six days before Wade was to coach in the NCAA Tournament and just four days after LSU received the dreaded NCAA's Notice of Allegations letter on several major recruiting violations. Those featured eight of the most serious Level 1 violations, including five directly involving Wade, who even used his wife's bank account to pay a recruit money, the NCAA said.
"Wade obstructed the NCAA's investigation by concealing evidence and lying to NCAA officials in interviews," according to the NCAA, which charged him with "unethical conduct."
Willy the Kid Wade's "cheating was planned, schemed and purposeful," the NCAA said. "Wade's conduct was deliberate and committed after substantial planning. Specifically, Wade offered inducements to secure prospective student athletes."
On March 12, 2023 - one year after LSU fired Wade - McNeese State hired him, ending his exile. And athletic director Heath Schroyer knew he tapped an outlaw, because his starting gift to Wade was a five-game suspension he hoped that the NCAA would view kindly. Some McNeese State people feared the NCAA would give Wade a five-year show cause that would mean his new employer would have to deal with sanctions from Wade's days at LSU for possibly three or four years after Wade left McNeese for another job.
Criticized by some close to McNeese for hiring the saddle-heavy Wade before the NCAA even ruled on LSU, Schroyer took a cowboy outlook.
"If the NCAA hammers Wade, all that will mean to us is we'll get to keep him longer," he told some close to McNeese.
Last June, the NCAA wrapped up its LSU investigation and went soft, giving Wade just a two-year show cause that ends June 21, 2025, while adding a five-game suspension and several recruiting limitations and safeguards.
McNeese Has Recruiting Limitations Under Will Wade
So, while McNeese enters the NCAA Tournament at 30-3, Wade is 22-1. McNeese went 8-2 to start the season with Wade on suspension. The recruiting limitations on Wade will continue to cut his off-campus recruiting, recruiting phone conversations as well as official and unofficial visits. He also has to work with an additional compliance officer to make sure he follows NCAA rules, and he must submit a weekly report on all his recruiting activities to the McNeese and Southland Conference compliance offices.
None of that has hampered Wade or McNeese in this first season as Willy the Kid is riding off into the sunset. He even drew some recent social media attention when jobs opened at Vanderbilt in his hometown of Nashville and at Louisville. But Wade, 41, is expected to ride at least another year with the Bandits.
"He's a rock star," long time McNeese Foundation board member Billy Rose told OutKick Monday. "It's such a great story. He loves Lake Charles."
And Lake Charles loves him back and sees him more as hero than villain - more Gary Cooper's Will Cane in the small town of Hadleyville, New Mexico, in "High Noon" than the villain Frank Miller with his incoming gang.
"Will Wade has done great things for this city, and it really needed it after Hurricane Laura," Rose said. "He's galvanized this city."
In August of 2020, Laura shredded McNeese's impressive, 4,200-seat Legacy Center like Katrina ripped apart the Superdome in New Orleans in 2005. The storm caused hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage throughout the city. Blue tarp over damaged roofs remain around town amid other visible damage.
"It's been a dream season coming off that," Rose said. "Even though we all know he'll be leaving before too long, he has done wonderful things that people did not expect right off."
Wade saw it, though, or at least he said he did.
"I can't wait to start the largest turnaround in college basketball history," Wade said with typical brashness at his introductory press conference on March 13, 2023. "We're going to go from 23 losses to 23-plus wins next year. Remember, I said that."
Wade also said he learned from his violations at LSU.
"It was probably very good for me," he said. "I probably needed to be checked a little."
Probably? A little?
Will Wade Gained ‘Perspective’ From NCAA Investigation At LSU
"It gave me perspective on some things that I'd maybe lost some perspective on," he said. "My career needs a rebirth after everything that's gone on, you know. Let's be honest, right?"
Ever the used car salesman, right? And embracing the outlaw image like Johnny Cash.
Wade wears black to all games like Cash - The Man In Black - did to most of his performances.
And before McNeese's home games, they play Cash's "God's Gonna Cut You Down" version as Wade's enters:
Well, you may throw your rock and hide your hand
Workin' in the dark against your fellow man
But as sure as God made black and white
What's down in the dark will be brought to the light
You can run on for a long time
Sooner or later God'll cut you down
Wade may be trying to reform, but he still has that outlaw edge and likes it. It's also working for him and McNeese.
In an unguarded moment recently - much like in his FBI wiretap excerpts - he said this, "In the old days of recruiting, it was cheaper than NIL."
Then again, Johnny Cash eventually atoned.