McNeese State is going through the most prosperous season of basketball success in program history. All it had to do was hire one of the game’s most controversial head coaches to get there.
Will Wade had never had a losing season as a head coach and had led LSU to what would have been four straight men’s NCAA tournament appearances if not for COVID-19. Despite this, he was fired by the Tigers after the NCAA opened an investigation into his recruiting practices.
That dimmed his star and eventually led to a 10-game suspension and two-year show-cause penalty. Fortunately for him, he’d already found a new job — and it wasn’t too far from Baton Rouge.
McNeese State is located in Lake Charles, Louisiana; a city that, unsurprisingly, sits on the bank of Lake Charles in the southwestern corner of the state. That leaves it roughly 210 miles from New Orleans and 145 from Houston.
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