On March 12, 2022, Will Wade was amongst the most reviled men in college basketball, ousted as head coach of the LSU Tigers less than a week before they went to the NCAA Tournament. One Sports Illustrated headline read: “Years of Corruption and Enablement Lead to Shameful and Deserving End For Will Wade.” It was a setback, to be sure.

Now, after bringing the formerly irrelevant McNeese Cowboys to two NCAA tournaments, their first in over two decades, he is once again at the head of an established, contending program in NC State.

With the LSU Tigers seeing their fourth consecutive underwhelming season, many in the fanbase have begun to look back on the brief Will Wade era with rose-tinted goggles.

Therefore, it’s worth asking: were Will Wade’s misdeeds really that bad?

First, let’s establish what exactly Will Wade did.

Will Wade initially ran into trouble with the NCAA in 2019. He was caught on a federal wiretap infamously discussing an illegal ‘strong ass offer’ for a prospect. He was suspended and forced to renegotiate his contract so that he could be fired for any other high-level violations.

Eleven new violations came to light in 2022, when an investigation into both LSU’s football and basketball programs alleged systemic corruption, contending that both programs operated with little to no oversight from administrators. Wade and his staff were alleged to be making multiple under-the-table deals, with some offers going as high as $300,000.

Now, in today’s NIL-driven college environment, $300,000 seems rather modest. Cooper Flagg, the highest-paid NCAA basketball player, made $4.8 million in the 2024-2025 season, and star players regularly make far beyond that job-ending offer.

This is the crux of the Will Wade defense. These sins have been retroactively redeemed by the changing landscape of college sports, and it was certainly wrong for LSU to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Why didn’t LSU stand by their man, especially since he put together some of the best squads in recent program history?

To be clear, his firing was fully materialist. LSU needed to quickly move past the investigation, and dumping Wade was the easiest way to go.
But it was also the righteous thing to do.

Does Will Wade deserve to be excused entirely from college basketball? Maybe not. He is one of the most fascinating coaches to watch, a program builder with an eye for detail.

However, his entire career must be looked at with the context that he is, by definition, a cheater.

Now, that’s not to say all violations are the same. Dale Brown, one of LSU’s most beloved coaches, regularly got in trouble with the NCAA for recruiting or payment violations.

However, Dale Brown’s actions were usually committed in the name of compassion. That doesn’t excuse them, but there is a significant difference between lending your car so a player can go to a family funeral or giving them the best medical care you can and handing out direct cash payments.

Dale Brown was never caught up in any federal investigations, nor did he ever hand out massive cash payments to players. Will Wade did. And in the cutthroat environment of college basketball, when unscrupulous coaches use dirty tactics to get a leg up over their opponents, it leaves a real human cost.

Will Wade, in bringing LSU to competitive status, made the conference as a whole much more competitive. While Wade, and the network of coaches engaged in underhanded recruiting tactics, got by and performed well, clean coaches, like Avery Johnson of Alabama, Mark Fox of Georgia and Billy Kennedy of Texas A&M, were cut for being unable to keep up with programs engaged in systemic corruption.

This fundamentally goes against the spirit of the game. Players absolutely deserve to be compensated for their hard work on the court along with their brand, and a regulated system of compensation and deals with significant oversight is a massively positive force overall for college sports. But there is a key difference between this system and backroom, shady dealings, a difference which isn’t acknowledged enough by defenders of coaches like Wade.

Will Wade deserves to be respected. He is unquestionably a phenomenal coach. His lightning turnaround of McNeese made for some of the most interesting basketball in the NCAA. And with the resources afforded to him by his new program, he’ll be a force to be reckoned with.

However, when watching him coach, when reminiscing about the opportunities that could’ve been, fans must remember that this is also someone who has shown a flagrant disregard for the rules of his sport, someone whose success was built upon taking the easy way to the top.