McNeese scripts ‘most significant day’ in upset of Clemson

• Mike Reiss Close Mike Reiss ESPN Staff Writer Mike Reiss is an NFL press reporter at ESPN

  and covers the New England Patriots.

  Reiss has covered the Patriots since 1997 and signed up with ESPN in 2009. In 2019, he was named Massachusetts Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association.Mar 20, 2025, 06:15 PM ET PROVIDENCE, R.I.– McNeese State president Dr. Wade Rousse said school

officials had actually gone over adding extra support for its site if its 12th-seeded men’s basketball team upset No. 5 Clemson in the NCAA competition Thursday.The Cowboys provided with a 69-67 win. Then the site crashed anyhow.”It’s a wonderful thing for us,” Rousse stated after the Cowboys opened a 31-13 lead at halftime and after that held on after Clemson made a charge in the last

2 minutes.”Most significant day in our school history, or one of them, for sure.Editor’s Picks

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“We have actually heard all the stories about other teams, that they get an upset and their site crashes since there’s so much interest in the school. We were trying to be proactive before we left. We put the IT team on standby– ‘Hey, exist, simply in case.'”

It was the first NCAA competition victory for McNeese State, which is located in Lake Charles, Louisiana.The Cowboys earned a

competition berth for the 2nd straight year as champion of the Southland Conference. But unlike last year, when coach Will Wade said they dealt with the tournament like a”excursion”due to the fact that they enjoyed to be there, this was more business-like– in more methods than one.Wade is leaving whenever the Cowboys’ tournament run ends to

end up being head coach at NC State, and he had been transparent about his interest in other tasks with players leading into the competition.”Whatever else is happening, that’s of no interruption to us.

I know everyone else thinks there’s interruptions and things, [but] we operate the very same method all the time, “he stated. “We have broken every record in the book. This was the last one to get. “The moment marks another step in the profession revival of Wade, who was fired in 2022 the wake of a three-year NCAA examination into infractions during his tenure at LSU. He was fired in March of 2022, right before the NCAA competition after an NCAA Notification of Allegations that consisted of seven Level I claims tied to LSU men’s basketball.Senior forward Christian Shumate, who had 13 points and 11 rebounds versus Clemson, acknowledged Wade’s method and how it resonated with players

.”When you remain in the loop, and both ends are transparent about things, there’s not excessive room for conflict. There’s a clear

understanding, “he stated.”We’ll worry about all of that things later. We’re just focused on winning these games.”McNeese(28-6)shocked Clemson by playing a 2-3 zone for the first time this season, which seemed to rattle the Tigers, who

shot 20.8 %in the very first half.”Our first half was pretty perfect. We’ve been conserving that zone; we have not played the 2-3 zone all year,”Wade said.

“We put it in for the conference tournament and never ever utilized it. We believed this would be a good time to pull it out. The guys did a great task executing.”Clemson’s 13 points at halftime almost set a record. In the shot clock age, the fewest points in the very first half of a competition game is 10– by Wake Forest against Butler in 2001, and by Kent State against UNLV in 2008. According to ESPN Research study, considering that seeding started in 1979, just two groups had worse scoring halves when seeded No. 5 or much better– the 1984 Kentucky team (11 in second half of a Final Four game versus Georgetown)and the 1999 Wisconsin group( 12 in first half versus Missouri State ).”We selected a hard day not to play our best,”Clemson coach Brad Brownell said.”Definitely they had a lot to do with it. I didn’t do a very good job with my guys– we weren’t really gotten ready for the zone to male.

We haven’t seen a lot of that this year, maybe a bit with Stanford. And it bothered us.”The moment marks another action in the career revival of Wade, who was fired in 2022 the wake of a three-year NCAA investigation into infractions during his period at LSU. He was fired in March of 2022, right before the NCAA competition after an NCAA Notification of Allegations that included seven Level I accusations connected to LSU men’s basketball.