RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina State has made it official: Will Wade, after quickly and impressively turning around McNeese State in two seasons with the Cowboys, is the next coach for the Wolfpack men’s basketball program.
N.C. State announced the addition of Wade on Sunday, a day after 12th-seeded McNeese State finished its season 28-7 with a loss to Midwest Region No. 4 seed Purdue in the second round of the NCAA Division I tournament. The Cowboys swept the Southland Conference regular-season and tournament championships to advance to March Madness in both seasons under Wade, and this year they won a game in the D-I tourney for the first time in program history.
An introductory news conference will held Tuesday in Raleigh for Wade, who was unusually open this past week about his conversations with N.C. State, compared to coaches typically deflecting questions or playing word games when asked about other jobs. In that regard, the eventual hiring of Wade, who has signed a six-year deal, has been an open secret for days.
While the contract was still pending approval from university trustees, N.C. State and athletic director Boo Corrigan finally have their man.
“Will told me that he believes that he can win at NC State … and ‘win big,'” Corrigan said in the Wolfpack’s release announcing the hire. “It didn’t take me too many conversations with him to believe it too.”
Saturday’s loss came two days after a first-round upset of Wade’s alma mater, Clemson — a No. 5 seed this season and an Elite Eight team in last year’s tourney — which competes alongside N.C. State in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
Wade’s two-year tenure in Lake Charles, Louisiana, marked a successful climb back after being fired by Southeastern Conference program LSU in 2022 because of allegations of recruiting violations. Those were rooted in a federal corruption investigation into men’s college basketball that became public in 2017, with N.C. State among the multiple schools entangled in that probe.
The N.C. State job returns Wade to the power conference ranks, but it will present a new challenge.
This is a time of transition for the tradition-rich ACC, with numerous longtime coaches — Roy Williams at North Carolina, Mike Krzyzewski at Duke, Jim Boeheim at Syracuse, Tony Bennett at Virginia, Mike Brey at Notre Dame, Jim Larranaga at Miami and Leonard Hamilton at Florida State — all exiting in the past four years amid a rapidly changing landscape for college sports.
There’s also the tough-neighborhood dynamic of building a winning program in the Research Triangle region in North Carolina, where Duke, North Carolina and N.C. State — boasting a combined 13 NCAA titles in men’s basketball — are all within a half-hour’s drive of one another. The 42-year-old Wade is clearly undeterred by that with a track record that includes eight 20-win seasons in his 11 years as a head coach.
“I am beyond excited and honored to be chosen to lead the Wolfpack basketball program,” Wade said in N.C. State’s release. “N.C. State’s rich tradition, passionate fan base, and location in one of the best cities in the country make this a destination job and I can’t wait to get started.”
Wade’s first job as a college head coach was a two-year stint at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga from 2013-15, followed by two NCAA bids in as many seasons at Virginia Commonwealth University before leaving for LSU in 2017. The peak of his tenure with the Tigers came in his second season, with LSU winning the SEC regular-season title and reaching the NCAA tournament’s Sweet 16, although Wade guided the program to the Big Dance again in 2021 and 2022.
After one season out of coaching, he returned to the sideline at McNeese State in 2023, with his tenure beginning with NCAA penalties that included a 10-game suspension to open his first season. The Cowboys went on to win 58 games in two seasons, a rapid climb for a program that had just 56 wins combined in the five seasons before Wade’s arrival.
Wade’s hire also means that N.C. State now has two former UTC coaches leading its basketball programs. Wolfpack women’s coach Wes Moore led the UTC women from 1998 to 2013 before leaving the Mocs to take over in Raleigh. Moore has directed N.C. State to nine appearances, including a Final Four run last year.
This season, Moore’s Wolfpack (27-6) shared the ACC regular-season title and are a No. 2 seed for the NCAA tourney, having won their first-round game at home Saturday, 75-55 against No. 15 seed Vermont, to advance to a Monday matchup against No. 7 seed Michigan State (22-9) with a Sweet 16 trip to Spokane, Washington, on the line. N.C. State’s starters include fifth-year senior Madison Hayes, a former Chattanooga-area prep standout at East Hamilton.
Wade, meanwhile, replaces Kevin Keatts, who was fired after eight seasons in charge of the Wolfpack men’s basketball program. His dismissal on March 9 came less than a year after Keatts guided N.C. State to its first ACC tournament title since 1987 and its first NCAA Final Four trip since coach Jim Valvano’s “Cardiac Pack” did it in an improbable run to the national championship in 1983.
Keatts guided N.C. State to three NCAA bids in all — and had the program in position for another when the COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of the 2020 tournament — but the Wolfpack went 12-19 this season to kill any lingering buzz from last year’s remarkable run.
That ultimately led the school to move on from Keatts even though he was under contract until April 2030, putting N.C. State on the hook for roughly $6.9 million in base salary alone. And it marked a reset for the program, down to how it handles finances for roster construction with players able to benefit from name, image and likeness compensation since July 2021, and revenue sharing set to start nationally next season.