By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
North Carolina State head coach Will Wade can finally take a breath or two and consider his immediate future after his Wolfpack lost an NCAA Tournament play-in game to Texas in a 68-66 thriller on Tuesday night in Dayton, Ohio.
According to sources close to LSU, the LSU men’s basketball coaching job is Wade’s if he wants it.
LSU powers that be have “found the money,” so to speak, to buy out current coach Matt McMahon at approximately $8 million and hire Wade to his old job at LSU, where he revitalized a dead program from 2017-22. He got the Tigers into three NCAA Tournaments out of a possible four (no tournament in 2020 due to COVID). He also won the program’s first Southeastern Conference regular season title since 2009 in 2019.
But LSU athletic director Scott Woodward fired Wade on March 12, 2022, amid FBI and NCAA investigations that found Wade to be the kingpin of a major recruiting scandal at LSU for most of his time there. He was named directly for five major, Level 1 NCAA violations involving paying recruits before players began getting paid within NCAA rules via Name, Image & Likeness in 2021.
FBI’S MOST WANTED BASKETBALL COACHES SQUARED OFF TUESDAY – WILL WADE AND SEAN MILLER
Interestingly, the coach that Wade lost to Tuesday night in the First Four was the other most infamous coach in that FBI, NCAA dragnet of college basketball corruption from 2017-19 – Sean Miller. Arizona fired Miller on April 7, 2021, amid a recruiting scandal that saw him have to forfeit games. Miller landed a year later as head coach of Xavier, where he was head coach from 2004-09 before getting the Arizona job, then Texas.
Wade’s backtrack coaching move would be far different that Miller’s, though. Miller left Xavier on his own to go to Arizona. Wade could be the first head coach to return to a program so quickly – just four years – after that program fired him. Not since the New York Yankees hired and fired manager Billy Martin five times from 1975-88, has a prodigal son returned in such fashion.
After the LSU firing, Wade resurfaced as McNeese State’s coach a year later and took the Cowboys to back-to-back NCAA Tournaments in 2024 and ’25 and was hired by North Carolina State on March 22 of last year to a six-year contract for $17.25 million. Wade would have to at least have a similar contract to return to LSU, which already owes fired football coach Brian Kelly a $54 million buyout and just hired new football coach Lane Kiffin for $91 million over seven years.
Should Wade leave NC State for another head coaching job before April 1, he owes the school a $5 million buyout. That buyout decreases to $3 million after April 1, which is two weeks from Wednesday. And the NCAA Transfer Portal window opens on April 7.
McMahon, 47, has three years remaining on a seven-year contract. He is 6-30 in the Southeastern Conference the last two seasons after going 15-16 and 3-15 this season and 14-18 and 3-15 in the 2024-25 season. His only winning season was 17-16 and 9-9 in 2023-24. He went 14-19 and 2-16 in his first season in 2022-23 after inheriting no players from Wade’s NCAA-shredded program.
LSU has not said if McMahon is coming back of if he is fired, and his last game of the season was a week ago. This is because if LSU can’t get Wade, it will likely stick with McMahon. Because Wade may be the only upper level coach interested in LSU at this time. And so many at LSU have Wade on the Brain.
Governor Jeff Landry and LSU Board of Supervisors member Lee Mallett, a Lake Charles businessman and major financial supporter in Landry’s rise to governor, tried to get Woodward to hire Wade back after last season, but Woodward blocked it. And Wade went to NC State. Then Woodward was fired after a strong suggestion by Landry last October and replaced by deputy athletic director Verge Ausberry. And Landry soon promoted Mallett to chairman of the Board of Supervisors last month.
Wade, according to LSU sources, really loved his time at LSU and feels that he had to leave with unfinished business. He particularly liked the fact that LSU can be the No. 1 basketball program in the state, which it has usually been throughout its history. North Carolina State, on the other hand, will almost always be No. 3 to North Carolina and Duke.
But Wade continued to sound like he is committed to staying at North Carolina State on Tuesday night.
“We’ve got a lot of things we’ve got to reset for next year,” he said after the loss to Texas finished his season at 20-14 (10-8 Atlantic Coast Conference). “We didn’t have the year that we wanted to have.”
The Wolfpack lost six of its last seven games.
“We’ve got a lot of things that we need to make sure that we’re in better shape for moving forward,” Wade said. “So, we’ll get to work on that as soon as the wheels hit the ground tomorrow.”
Wade may have been hinting at his desire for a larger roster budget, which was at approximately $12 million this past season. If he comes to LSU, Wade would want something in the $12-to-$13 million range for his roster budget. McMahon’s roster budget this past season was approximately $8 million.
If Wade does come to LSU for 2026-27, it will be his third program in four years. And he brought up roster building fatigue at new programs at a press conference on Monday in Dayton when asked how he flips rosters.
“Well, all of them are different,” he said. “This one at NC State has been pretty smooth. For better or worse, I’ve done this five times now (Chattanooga, 2013-15; VCU, 2015-17; LSU, 2017-22; McNeese, 2023-25; and North Carolina State, 2025-?).
“So, you get a little bit used to it,” he said. “I’m tired of doing it, so we don’t want to do it anymore.”
So, he wants to put down a few roots at last? Well, …
Then, he immediately went the other way, which is the classic, duplicitous Will Wade.
“But you get a little bit used to it, and every time it gets a little bit easier,” he said.
So, it would be easier at LSU?
“But it takes a minute to get into the rhythm of every school you go to and every place you go to,” he said. “There’s a different rhythm. So it takes some time to get used to that. We’ve gotten in rhythm here at NC State.”
And he already knows LSU, having just been there a few years ago. He knows the rhythm of LSU.
He sure sounds like he’s going back and forth.
Stay tuned.
This is Will Wade. And this is the Wild West.
Anything can happen.
But remember, he really enjoyed his time at LSU.
And there’ll be no real rules to worry about on the Bayou this time.
Be the first to comment