PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Well, put it this way: As parting gifts go, this sure beats the case of Rice-a-Roni most folks got when their time on “The Price is Right” was done.
In this case, McNeese gets a first-ever win in the NCAA Tournament.
In this case, with the Cowboys coach, Will Wade, already signed, sealed and delivered to N.C. State, with that becoming official the moment the Pokes are sent on their way, they decided instead to stick around a few extra days. Decided to keep their coach on the clock a couple extra days, too.
“Just enough,” Wade said in the moments after McNeese 69, Clemson 67, was over, after they’d resisted a furious late rally by the Tigers to unwrap the first batch of slippers from this year’s first Cinderella and crashed the Midwest region party. “We’ll take it!”
They say there’s no more dangerous matchup for a higher seed than the right side of the hyphen in a 5-12 matchup? Clemson certainly understands now. The Tigers advanced to the Elite Eight last year and were 27-6, including 18-2 in the once-imperious ACC.
But McNeese was coming in on an 11-game winning streak and, in a word, pulverized Clemson across the first 20 minutes. It was 8-8 and then it was 18-8, and then it was 29-11. At the half Clemson had a shocking total of 13 points. McNeese helped itself to 31 and went to the locker room to take hammers to an awful lot of brackets all across the country.
“Luckily we had enough of a margin,” Wade said. “We knew they’d make a run and they did.”
Some sloppy foul shooting from McNeese and some hot 3-point shooting late by Clemson closed the margin to 68-65 on a layup by Clemson’s Chauncey Wiggins with 12 seconds left, but Javohn Garcia made one of two free throws that wrapped it up.
Quadir Copeland scored 16 points and added five assists for McNeese, while Brandon Murray came off the bench for 21 points, three steals and three assists.
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Wade, who has been a lightning rod in the sport ever since losing his job at Louisiana State in 2019 in the same FBI scandal that forced Rick Pitino out at Louisville and Sean Miller at Arizona, was given a chance by McNeese despite having to sit out his first 10 games as coach last year.
Now he’s off to the ACC and you can probably list Clemson coach Brad Brownell as one who will not be rolling out the red carpet to greet him when he officially takes over the Wolfpack, maybe as early as Saturday night if Purdue can end McNeese’s ride.
If not? Some parting gifts are better than others.
“We made school history,” Wade said. “I’m so proud for our guys, they’ve been doing it all year. We narrow focus and do what we do. This changes our university forever.”
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