{"id":550661,"date":"2026-03-28T15:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T15:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/550661\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T15:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T15:40:08","slug":"a-will-wade-lsu-reunion-was-in-the-works-for-months-and-everyone-but-nc-state-saw-it-coming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/550661\/","title":{"rendered":"A Will Wade-LSU reunion was \u2018in the works\u2019 for months, and everyone but NC State saw it coming"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Athletic has live coverage of the 2026 Women\u2019s March Madness Sweet 16<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A little more than a year ago, Will Wade was being lauded for his candor.<\/p>\n

He was head coach of McNeese, about to play a first-round NCAA Tournament game in Providence, R.I., against Clemson \u2014 a game his team would go on to win. While he didn\u2019t come straight out and say that he was leaving the Southland Conference school for NC State of the ACC after the Cowboys\u2019 season ended, it was apparent that everyone involved was aware of what was going on and cool with it.<\/p>\n

McNeese was winning. NC State was making a splashy hire. Wade, fired by LSU for NCAA rules violations in 2022, was getting another shot at a big-time job.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe addressed it head-on,\u201d Wade said at the time of his talk with his players and bosses. \u201cWe\u2019re all on the same page with everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wade, 43, is once again on the move and stealing the spotlight away from March Madness, but this time around not everybody is having fun.<\/p>\n

After one season under Wade, NC State is back in the market for a head coach as he returns to LSU<\/a>, where he will reunite with the university president and athletic director he worked for at McNeese. A deal that had been brewing behind the scenes for months came together on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want to be a stepping stone on the way to another job,\u201d NC State athletic director Boo Corrigan said Thursday.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the way it turned out.<\/p>\n

The Wolfpack paid Wade $2.5 million, gave him $11 million to build a roster and got 20 victories, 14 losses, a resignation from Wade, delivered via email by his agent and a social media post saying goodbye<\/a>.<\/p>\n

LSU is getting back the most successful men\u2019s basketball coach it has had in the last 20 years \u2014 a fairly low bar for a program that made two NCAA appearances in 10 years before Wade was first hired by the school \u2014 with another audacious, high-profile and high-priced hire of a guy who blew up all the bridges on his way out of his last job.<\/p>\n

In Baton Rouge, Wade joins Lane Kiffin, who landed at LSU after a messy divorce with Ole Miss. Kiffin bailed on the College Football Playoff-bound Rebels a couple of days after the regular season ended. Kiffin got a seven-year contract worth $91 million to relocate within the SEC, along with a promise of $25 million to build this year\u2019s Tigers roster.<\/p>\n

Wade, who was 105-51 in five seasons at LSU, won\u2019t be getting that much, but he\u2019s still receiving a seven-year deal with a salary bump to $4 million, according to the term sheet he signed with the Tigers. Additionally, a person close to Wade told The Athletic that LSU has committed to spending at least $12 million to $15 million \u2014 between revenue-sharing and NIL \u2014 on player payroll. LSU is also on the hook for $8 million to Matt McMahon, the coach Wade will replace.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s roughly one-seventh of what LSU owes Kiffin\u2019s predecessor. Brian Kelly\u2019s firing in late October and the financial fallout of his $54 million buyout triggered the governor of Louisiana to call out the state\u2019s flagship school, its leadership and all of college athletics for reckless spending.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy role is about the fiscal effect of firing a coach under a terrible contract,\u201d Gov. Jeff Landry said then.<\/p>\n

Scott Woodward, the athletic director who gave Kelly that contract, was let go days later<\/a>. He was owed $6 million on the way out.<\/p>\n

Money\u2019s not an issue at LSU, two people with ties to the school emphasized to The Athletic.<\/p>\n

Woodward\u2019s reputation in the industry, for better or worse, was as a big-game hunter who liked to make home-run hires. A few months before luring Kelly away from Notre Dame, he hired Kim Mulkey to lead LSU women\u2019s basketball. She came from Baylor with three national titles and added another with the Tigers. She is in the middle of a 10-year, $36 million deal.<\/p>\n

Woodward is gone, but LSU is still aiming high, first with Kiffin and now with Wade, though the latter has been on LSU\u2019s radar every bit as long \u2014 if not longer.<\/p>\n

Multiple people briefed on the situation said LSU was interested in bringing back Wade last year after McMahon completed a third lackluster season with the Tigers. But the financial ramifications of firing McMahon at that point were too steep, and Wade didn\u2019t have as much internal support at LSU.<\/p>\n

That changed substantially on Nov. 4 when former McNeese president Wade Rousse was appointed president of LSU. On Thursday, Rousse named Heath Schroyer, formerly the athletic director at McNeese who hired Wade, senior deputy athletic director at LSU.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has all been in the works,\u201d a person close to Wade told The Athletic. During the ACC tournament, Wade denied interest<\/a> in what at the time was a potential LSU opening.<\/p>\n

One of the people with deep LSU ties who is also close to Wade told The Athletic that discussions about Wade coming back to Baton Rouge go back to last summer, when Rousse was just a potential candidate for a vacant presidency.<\/p>\n

The person said Schroyer\u2019s role will be to oversee Wade\u2019s program and baseball, leaving AD Verge Ausberry to focus on Kiffin and football. Schroyer is a former basketball coach, including a stint as head coach at McNeese before taking over as AD.<\/p>\n

The person also said Wade is set to bring new donors to LSU basketball with whom he had built relationships at McNeese.<\/p>\n

The irony of Wade\u2019s move causing such a stir this year is that he is coming off a so-so debut with NC State. After an 18-6 start, the Wolfpack lost eight of their last 10 games, including a loss in the First Four to Texas.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a lot of things we\u2019ve got to reset for next year,\u201d Wade said after the loss in Dayton, Ohio. \u201cWe didn\u2019t have the year we wanted to have. We\u2019ve got a lot of things that we need to make sure that we\u2019re in better shape for moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Between his baggage and a mediocre first season in Raleigh, Wade didn\u2019t appear to be such a hot commodity.<\/p>\n

According to the first person close to Wade, he went to Corrigan after the season seeking a raise, more money for assistant coaches and an increase in NIL funds. Either unaware of LSU\u2019s interest or unconcerned by it, Corrigan declined to renegotiate Wade\u2019s contract.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is culpable in some respects,\u201d the person said of Corrigan.<\/p>\n

Corrigan pushed back on the idea that he stood idly by as LSU stole his basketball coach. He said he asked Wade if they needed to talk about potential interest in LSU.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the answer was no,\u201d Corrigan said.<\/p>\n

Corrigan said he and Wade had a two-hour meeting Tuesday night to talk about scheduling, the roster, the staff and \u201cWhat do we need to be competitive?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI believed he was telling me his true intentions,\u201d Corrigan said. \u201cI\u2019m disappointed for our athletic department, I\u2019m disappointed for our fans, and I\u2019m disappointed for our university that we\u2019re here today.\u201d<\/p>\n

NC State will get $4 million for Wade\u2019s departure. His $5 million buyout would have dropped to $3 million on April 2, but NC State decided it was worth $1 million to move things along. If that figure seems small for a coach whose exit seemed at least somewhat predictable, Corrigan defended it as the product of an initial negotiation that gave Wade a $2.5 million salary that was probably below market value.<\/p>\n

Whether Wade or his new employer covers that $4 million is unknown, but by all accounts he and LSU have been pining for each other for about a year. It was just a matter of time before their second marriage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Athletic has live coverage of the 2026 Women\u2019s March Madness Sweet 16. A little more than a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550662,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[6342,2663,8943,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-550661","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-lsu-tigers","9":"tag-mens-college-basketball","10":"tag-north-carolina-state-wolfpack","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}