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Will Wade Revealed Smart Schematic Change That Helped McNeese Catch Clemson Off-Guard

Kristen Wong

Head coach Will Wade of the McNeese State Cowboys celebrates against the Clemson Tigers during the second half in the first round of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at Amica Mutual Pavillion on March 20, 2025 in Providence, Rhode Island.
Head coach Will Wade of the McNeese State Cowboys celebrates against the Clemson Tigers during the second half in the first round of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at Amica Mutual Pavillion on March 20, 2025 in Providence, Rhode Island. / Photo by Emilee Chinn/Getty Images
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In the first major upset of this year's NCAA tournament, No. 12 McNeese State stunned No. 5 Clemson in a 69–67 victory to clinch its first tournament win in program history Thursday afternoon.

Led by coach Will Wade, who will reportedly take over NC State's basketball program next season, the Cowboys held off a last-minute Tigers rally to march ahead to the Round of 32 where they'll face No. 4 Purdue on Saturday.

How exactly did Wade orchestrate McNeese's most important win in school history? The 42-year-old coach shared a smart defensive change he made before the game that may have proved pivotal to the Cowboys' underdog victory.

Wade spoke with John Fanta after Thursday's win and revealed that even though the Cowboys had been playing man defense for the entire year, he switched to zone against Clemson:

"You had to junk it up," Wade said. "You let [Clemson coach Brad Brownell] just run his plays, he's a phenomenal coach. We went man out of—we ended up switching man out of the zone look after a certain amount of passes. ... We had put it in for the conference tournament and we just didn't use it in the conference tournament.

"We'd kinda been saving it. We thought it would catch them off-guard, it certainly caught them off-guard in the first half which allowed us to build up the margin that we needed to withstand, then pin their ears back at the end."

McNeese State closed out the first half with a commanding 31–13 lead, in part due to resilient defense and in part due to guard Brandon Murray, who scored 14 of his 21 points during that span.

Clemson, held to just 13 points, made unwanted March Madness history having put together the worst first-half performance by an ACC team in the men's NCAA tournament since 2001.

Wade, a well-known Clemson fan and alum, has won 57 games over his last two seasons at McNeese and boasts a generally impressive coaching résumé over the last decade, save for being fired from LSU after the 2021–22 season due to recruiting violations.

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Kristen Wong
KRISTEN WONG

Kristen Wong is a staff writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. She has been a sports journalist since 2020. Before joining SI in November 2023, Wong covered four NFL teams as an associate editor with the FanSided NFL Network and worked as a staff writer for the brand’s flagship site. Outside of work, she has dreams of running her own sporty dive bar.

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