McNeese State took a big swing when it hired Will Wade, a year to the day after he was fired from LSU due to alleged recruiting violations. Wade would go on to win the Southland Conference Coach of the Year award in both of his seasons with the Cowboys, leading the program to back-to-back conference titles and NCAA tournament berths. McNeese reached the round of 32 for the first time as a Division I program this year.
Wade quickly parlayed his time at McNeese into a power conference job, as he will take over at NC State. In his place, Cowboys brass are looking to make another bold hire, with one Basketball Hall of Fame coach on the list, albeit one with his own personal baggage: former Cincinnati, Kansas State and West Virginia coach Bob Huggins.
College basketball insider Jeff Goodman reports that Huggins is on a list that also includes former Toronto Raptors coach Sam Mitchell and former Tennessee coach Donnie Tyndall.
Here's a list of potential candidates for the McNeese State opening, source told @TheFieldOf68:
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) March 24, 2025
Bill Armstrong (Baylor), former West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins, James Miller (Okl St.), Matt Woodley (Wake), former Tennessee head coach Donnie Tyndall, Chase Buford (KU) and…
Huggins stepped down at West Virginia in June 2023 after being arrested and charged with driving under the influence in Pittsburgh, his second arrest for DUI after a 2004 incident that led to his resignation at Cincinnati. Huggins blew a .021, more than double the legal limit, seemed unaware of where he was and had multiple garbage bags containing empty beer cans in his university-issued car, according to the criminal complaint.
In his resignation letter, Huggins said he was retiring from coaching. Just weeks later, he claimed that WVU posted the resignation letter that he "did not draft or review," and that he never signed a resignation letter. Last March he indicated that he would like to return to coaching.
Huggins has an all-time record of 935–414 and a pair of Final Fours to his name: 1992 with the Bearcats and 2010 with the Mountaineers. He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2022.
Wade's LSU transgressions barely register just a few years later, given the large-scale changes to college sports with the legalization of NIL. Huggins's repeated arrests will be more difficult to answer to, though McNeese's reported candidates list shows that the program has an appetite for controversy with its next hire. Tyndall, who hasn't coached at an NCAA program since being fired after one year in Knoxville in 2014–15, is still under an NCAA show-cause order through 2026 after violations committed at Southern Miss. The decade-long show-cause is one of the longest penalties in NCAA history.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as McNeese State Targeting Controversial Hall of Famer As Potential Will Wade Replacement.
