Popular March Madness Darling McNeese State Had One Of The Most Laughable Out of Conference Schedules Ever

Every year when the NCAA Tournament bracket is released, the entire country adopts a 12-seed as a potential Cinderella to make a deep run. McNeese State feels like that team this time around after ‘bad boy’ Will Wade led the small-town Louisiana program to a 30-3 record. A handful of those 30 wins came against schools that nobody in the country has ever heard of unless they actually graduated from there. 

There are small schools, and then there are the schools that McNeese beat up on early on in the regular season that are in a category of their own.

READ: Ex-LSU 'Gangster' Will Wade Back In Black At NCAA Tournament Vs. Goody Gonzaga

The Cowboys jumped directly into the fire to start the year with a trip to VCU, a tough place to travel to, and picked up an 11-point win, but then the schedule got weird, and incredibly soft.

McNeese State improved to 2-0 with a 96-55 home win over the College of Biblical Studies, which is a school in Houston, Texas that surprisingly does have a basketball team. That wasn't the case a year ago, however, this was the first year the College of Biblical Studies had a basketball program. The only two sports on campus, in fact, are men's and women's basketball.

Three days later, the Cowboys welcomed Champion Christian College to town for a glorified scrimmage that ended in a 110-46 McNeese victory. The mighty Tigers of Champions Christian play out of Hot Springs, Arkansas, and it appears they've had a men's hoops program for six seasons now.

USA Today/Imagn

It's as if McNeese State knew it would have an easy route to a win over Champions College given that it scheduled a game the very next night against a program named LeTourneau. Shockingly, LeTourneau isn't a school located in France or Louisiana, but actually calls Longview, Texas home. The YellowJackets have a rich, rich basketball history that dates all the way back to the 1990s. McNeese's offense had a bit of an off night against LeTourneau scoring just 81 points in a 32-point victory.

The next five games on the schedule included opponents that were recognizable, including two road losses against Western Carolina and Louisiana Tech, but then the opponent of all opponents came to Lake Charles to take on the Cowboys on December 5.

The Mississippi University of Women - yes, women - made the 452-mile trek from Columbus, Miss. to lose, scoring a whopping 23 points against McNeese, who managed to score 92 points that evening.

The Mississippi University of Women dates all the way back to 1884, when the school was founded under the name of the Industrial Institute and College for Education of White Girls of Mississippi. It kept that name up until 1920, when it was changed to Mississippi State College for Women before adopting its current title in 1974.

Up until 1982, the school only accepted women, but the U.S. Supreme Court got involved and ruled that the nursing school's single-sex admission policies were in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

As for the school's athletics, the Owls boast seven men's sports, and yes, that includes men's basketball, McNeese didn't actually play a team of women.

The school has adopted ‘The W Athletics,' which is honestly awesome.

This concludes the history lesson on incredibly small athletic programs and a look at McNeese State's out-of-conference campaign this season. Anyone who is riding with the Cowboys this March has been warned.