By BRETT MARTEL AP Sports Writer
LSU fired fourth-year coach Matt McMahon on Thursday and rehired former Tigers coach Will Wade from N.C. State, where Wade was in only the first of a six-year contract with the Wolfpack.
“This was not an easy decision,” Wade wrote in a social media post Thursday in which he thanked N.C. State for the opportunity to coach the Wolfpack. “But the opportunity to return to Louisiana State University is deeply personal. It’s a chance to go home — to a place that means a great deal to me and my family.”
The move by LSU’s recently reshuffled athletic department leadership brings back to the bayou a coach whose popularity with many Louisiana college basketball fans — including Gov. Jeff Landry — endured throughout, and long after, an NCAA investigation that dogged both Wade and LSU four years ago, resulting in sanctions for the program.
“As LSU fans know well, Will is a consistent winner, a diligent program-builder, and a charismatic leader with an incredible ability to connect with his student-athletes and the fan base,” LSU first-year athletic director Verge Ausberry said. “Not only does he bring his postseason pedigree and an energetic presence, but he is innovative and strategic at a time in college athletics that requires both.”
The topic of Wade’s potential return to LSU had been churning for weeks, enough so that Wade was ready with a response when asked about it after the Wolfpack’s loss to Virginia in the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament. That included noting that the job at the time wasn’t open, with McMahon — the permanent successor after Wade’s ouster — still in place.
“I was hired at N.C. State to do a job. This wasn’t going to take one year,” Wade said, then motioned toward Wolfpack athletic director Boo Corrigan at the back of the news-conference room. “I’ve already met with our administration about next year and some of the changes that we need to make and some of the things that we need to do to put this program where it deserves long term.”
Exactly two weeks later, Wade was gone. The buyout in the 43-year-old Wade’s contract with N.C. State was for $5 million, but was scheduled to drop to $3 million after April 1. Corrigan said the university agreed to lower the buyout to $4 million, preferring to let Wade leave as soon as possible so as not to delay the search for his successor.
“As far as the resignation letter, it was an email that we received from his agent,” Corrigan said. “I’m disappointed in how it went down. I really am.”
However, Corrigan said he did not regret hiring Wade, and credited the coach with reinvigorating the program. Corrigan said he intended to “commiserate” with financial supporters of the Wolfpack who are “feeling lied to,” and seek to reassure them he’s going to find a coach who “wants to be at N.C. State for a long time.”
Wade’s return to LSU comes four years after his firing there over allegations of money-fueled recruiting violations, which came amid a federal corruption investigation into the sport. Wade rebuilt his career with a two-year stint at McNeese that included 50 wins and two trips to March Madness.
Wade’s lone season in Raleigh started with the coach confidently predicting a “reckoning” for the ACC and college basketball at his introductory news conference, coming a year ago Wednesday. He promised the Wolfpack would be in the top part of the ACC standings and reach the NCAA Tournament.
The Wolfpack accomplished the latter in a season that started with promise but faded badly. Notably, N.C. State stood at 18-6 overall and 9-2 in the ACC as of Feb. 7 before losing six of seven to close the regular season, including a 41-point loss at Louisville, a 29-point loss at Virginia and another 29-point loss at home to Duke.
Along the way, Wade’s postgame comments could range from a defiant and expletive-dotted defense on top transfer addition Darrion Williams to frustrated analyses of the performances and shortcomings of the overhauled roster he put together.
N.C. State, which finished seventh in the 18-team league, ended up in the First Four and lost to Texas on a last-second shot for its eighth loss in 10 games.
McMahon was hired at LSU in 2022 by then-athletic director Scott Woodward, who resigned under pressure from Gov. Jeff Landry in October in the wake of the firing of former Tigers football coach Brian Kelly.
Soon after, the LSU Board of Supervisors hired former McNeese State President Wade Rousse as LSU system president. This week, LSU lured McNeese State athletic director Heath Schroyer to a senior role as deputy athletics director overseeing men’s basketball. Schroyer, a former college basketball coach himself, was the first to hire Wade as the coach’s one-year suspension by the NCAA was about to end.
The Louisiana governor appoints 15 of the 16 members of the LSU Board of Supervisors to staggered six-year terms. Landry has appointed seven so far and the terms of four other board members expire in June, giving the governor considerable influence over the leadership in LSU’s athletic department.
Landry applauded Wade’s hiring on social media Thursday afternoon, writing, “Where there is a WILL there is a WA(y)DE! Excited to welcome Coach Wade back where he belongs — home in Louisiana. It’s time to BOOT UP!”
Wade, who often used the term “Boot up” as an allusion to Louisiana’s geographic shape, was exceedingly popular with LSU’s fan base. Packed crowds at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center offered raucous support of him during pregame introductions — even after allegations of his NCAA violations became public in 2019.
Wade went 105-51 at LSU. He led LSU to NCAA Tournament appearances in 2019, 2021 and 2022. His 2020 team appeared to be a virtual lock for March Madness before the tournament was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
When LSU fired Wade, then-university President William F. Tate and Woodward said Wade’s tenure and the allegations that followed him placed the men’s basketball program “under an exhausting shroud of negativity.”
LSU received a formal notice of allegations from the NCAA’s Complex Case unit in March 2022, including multiple charges alleging Wade’s personal involvement in — or awareness of — Level I misconduct.
Level I violations at that time could include a head coach’s lack of oversight on compliance matters; failure to cooperate in an NCAA investigation; unethical or dishonest conduct; or prohibited cash or similar benefits provided to recruits.
However, much of what Wade was accused is now not only legal, but widely seen as critical to success during a new era of college sports in which player payments — both from endorsements and directly from university athletic departments — are permitted.
LSU has not been to March Madness since Wade left.
McMahon — saddled during his first two seasons by NCAA-approved, self-imposed scholarship reductions stemming from the Wade allegations — went 60-70 at LSU. This season, LSU went 15-17, posting a last-place 3-15 record in the SEC.
McMahon is still owed around $8 million by LSU, which also has had to buy out the remaining $54 million on Kelly’s football contract since firing him.
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AP Basketball Writer Aaron Beard in Raleigh, North Carolina, contributed to this report.