Will Wade/LSU return rumors are hitting mainstream media

Wade has made it clear he loves it here and that State had everything it needed to win. he's said that since the day he showed up on campus. These rumors are going to pop up every year, to be honest. At this current stage, I don't see him bolting for LSU this offseason, but that's just my current opinion on it.

Doubt he wants to be in the shadow of Lane Kiffin. His value will increase if returns NC State MBB to relevance in the next two years. He has a good hand to play with lots of upside plus he’s still rebuilding reputation. Job hopping after all his positive comments about State doesn’t help him.

^All true. If he does return State to national prominence he will be compensated here or can write his own ticket elsewhere.

He’s got to win first baby

Gotta just be LSU feelers right? Surely we gave him what he wanted for NIL.

Lonewolf67 said:

He’s got to win first baby

That's what the word if means

I guess the main question to ask is this: Is NIL for basketball gonna be competitive with upper echelon of ACC this year? I understand it was 10 million spent on current roster. Safe to assume it’ll need to be 12 million+ for next year. Are there enough donors to make that a reality? Remind me again how this is sustainable….?

He’s not going to win the ACC or Natty this year, anyway. Good riddance!, I say. Does the sarcasm translate? Go Pack!

I mentioned this a few months ago because the leadership at LSU was in place that was chummy with WW. Redreckoning of course shot it down lol. It’s always been something to watch. Like Noah said, it’s going to come every offseason. As we have more success, it will only ramp up more. My two cents - if WW left after a fairly decent year here - let’s be honest - Top 4/5 is good. It’s not elite at all - then have at it man lol. Boo proved to be great at assessing a coach. He wanted Odom first, reportedly. The donors didn’t. Well? Okay cool - we have an AD who could likely find another really good coach and raise some NIL to be really good. But for Wade, if he left after 1 year: 1. He’d enter a shit Storm like Kiffin at Tennessee and at LSU 2. He’d be labeled a liar (and a cheat, like he already is) 3. He wouldn’t do that great in the SEC. The SEC is still probably better than the ACC right now in basketball. There’s so much more opportunity to win in the ACC right now. 4. He wants to be THE show in town. That will literally never happen an LSU - no matter the money. I don’t think he goes for all those reasons. The guy has talked about his mental health taking a serious toll in that last LSU mess, on top of that. It’s noted on a great podcast with a guy talking about mental health with coaches. Plus, he knows the job here isn’t close to being done and what he’s promised. To leave and bail on that would make him look like a coward and a loser - to be frank. He has too much pride and competitive juice IMO to leave any time soon, until he’s become a bit of a king in our “neighborhood” and makes some serious national and conference noise. Will we then be able to pony up to keep him in year 3 or 4? If we win and win win - I bet so. But only time will tell. The guy actually has to prove something first tho. This isn’t a shot at him. He’s a great coach and I love him and want him to stay forever. But this season is literally the equivalent to our last two coaches first seasons - only one of them made the Sweet 16 and was a few points away from beating Kansas for an Elite 8. He then followed that up with a top 10 national class and multiple McD AAs. So, Will has underachieved so far compared to Gottfried and Keatts - or is at least on par. He hasn’t been better. That should put this into perspective hopefully. And PS - Gott and Keatts were going against K, Roy, Boeheim, Hamilton, Pitino, etc. And they got the same (and better) results than this team and coach right now with no HOFers in the conference. So in some crazy world where LSU wants to throw a boatload at him right now, and he takes it and bails? Lol - have at it man.

C. Lupus said:

He’s not going to win the ACC or Natty this year, anyway. Good riddance!, I say. Does the sarcasm translate? Go Pack!

From my experience, one must be very careful with sarcasm on this board. 🤣

There are some heavy hitters at LSU that would like to see Wade back there. And I think we all know they have plenty of money to get a guy if money is most important. Personally I have heard some stuff but I just don’t worry too much about it. With coaches and players things will be different every year. We are not a big bankrolled program so expect some things to happen that we might not want. It’s just where we are given we have no group of billionaires that get their jollies from winning and dumping big money to do so.

wolfpackguy42069 said:

I mentioned this a few months ago because the leadership at LSU was in place that was chummy with WW. Redreckoning of course shot it down lol. It’s always been something to watch. Like Noah said, it’s going to come every offseason. As we have more success, it will only ramp up more. My two cents - if WW left after a fairly decent year here - let’s be honest - Top 4/5 is good. It’s not elite at all - then have at it man lol. Boo proved to be great at assessing a coach. He wanted Odom first, reportedly. The donors didn’t. Well? Okay cool - we have an AD who could likely find another really good coach and raise some NIL to be really good. But for Wade, if he left after 1 year: 1. He’d enter a **** Storm like Kiffin at Tennessee and at LSU 2. He’d be labeled a liar (and a cheat, like he already is) 3. He wouldn’t do that great in the SEC. The SEC is still probably better than the ACC right now in basketball. There’s so much more opportunity to win in the ACC right now. 4. He wants to be THE show in town. That will literally never happen an LSU - no matter the money. I don’t think he goes for all those reasons. The guy has talked about his mental health taking a serious toll in that last LSU mess, on top of that. It’s noted on a great podcast with a guy talking about mental health with coaches. Plus, he knows the job here isn’t close to being done and what he’s promised. To leave and bail on that would make him look like a coward and a loser - to be frank. He has too much pride and competitive juice IMO to leave any time soon, until he’s become a bit of a king in our “neighborhood” and makes some serious national and conference noise. Will we then be able to pony up to keep him in year 3 or 4? If we win and win win - I bet so. But only time will tell. The guy actually has to prove something first tho. This isn’t a shot at him. He’s a great coach and I love him and want him to stay forever. But this season is literally the equivalent to our last two coaches first seasons - only one of them made the Sweet 16 and was a few points away from beating Kansas for an Elite 8. He then followed that up with a top 10 national class and multiple McD AAs. So, Will has underachieved so far compared to Gottfried and Keatts - or is at least on par. He hasn’t been better. That should put this into perspective hopefully. And PS - Gott and Keatts were going against K, Roy, Boeheim, Hamilton, Pitino, etc. And they got the same (and better) results than this team and coach right now with no HOFers in the conference. So in some crazy world where LSU wants to throw a boatload at him right now, and he takes it and bails? Lol - have at it man.

Good take. But I wouldn't say he's underachieved, per se. Did he oversell in his first press conference? Probably. But in today's age, you need to drum up interest early and often (Curt Cignetti's Michigan and Ohio State suck comment is an example). But NC State is on pace to finish inside the top four of the ACC standings for the first time since ... 2013. ......

NoahFleischman said:

Good take. But I wouldn't say he's underachieved, per se. Did he oversell in his first press conference? Probably. But in today's age, you need to drum up interest early and often (Curt Cignetti's Michigan and Ohio State suck comment is an example). But NC State is on pace to finish inside the top four of the ACC standings for the first time since ... 2013. ......

For sure. Where I think he has “underachieved” or “oversold” - whatever we want to call it - was with a $10M+ budget compared to those past coaches. And question - didn’t Keatts finish tied for 3rd his first year and earn a double bye? 2017? 2013 was Gottfried, so WW hasn’t surpassed that success yet. I think he will. But just offering some perspective that while we are all very excited to have him, he has a lot more to prove given all of his talk (and budget).

I thought he was fired at Lsu . If this is the case why would he return?

Old man old van said:

I thought he was fired at Lsu . If this is the case why would he return?

The two reasons are the Governor wants him back and the President that hired him at McNeese is at LSU now. I’m not so sure their LSU AD would want to do it, though

NoahFleischman said:

Good take. But I wouldn't say he's underachieved, per se. Did he oversell in his first press conference? Probably. But in today's age, you need to drum up interest early and often (Curt Cignetti's Michigan and Ohio State suck comment is an example). But NC State is on pace to finish inside the top four of the ACC standings for the first time since ... 2013. ......

Finishing top 4-5 in the acc would be good, strong improvement. And we let 2 games really slip away. I think what gets in our craw a bit is all the preseason talking it built up our hopes to expect more. 4th is a massive improvement.

o_One putt said:

Finishing top 4-5 in the acc would be good, strong improvement. And we let 2 games really slip away. I think what gets in our craw a bit is all the preseason talking it built up our hopes to expect more. 4th is a massive improvement.

So much about this year was about establishing a system where the team owners want to keep supporting the program. If Brian McMurray and others are happy, then it's a successful year.

o_One putt said:

Finishing top 4-5 in the acc would be good, strong improvement. And we let 2 games really slip away. I think what gets in our craw a bit is all the preseason talking it built up our hopes to expect more. 4th is a massive improvement.

I don’t get this sentiment. He said “top half of ACC and make the NCAA tournament.” That’s close to being mission accomplished for year one. Thankfully Wade’s not satisfied with just that.

ThePackman06 said:

I don’t get this sentiment. He said “top half of ACC and make the NCAA tournament.” That’s close to being mission accomplished for year one. Thankfully Wade’s not satisfied with just that.

Yeah see this is what I thought earlier in the year too. He said “top half of the ACC”. It’s semantics - but somewhere along the lines that morphed into “top 4?” So, I guess anything below top 4 is not mission accomplished. Either way, we could LEGIT be solidly and firmly 3rd right now lol.

That one will leave a mark. Welcome back to bubble world. Just a terrible loss and high paid lack of effort - once again.

Take Williams with him

N0Lyf3Scrub said:

ESPN & On3 are pushing the Wade to LSU rumors again after this year. And as annoyed as I am from these rumors & are skeptical - I saw this tweet from an accredited poster on 247 - poster on Twitter so I figure it is okay to share.

This comes from the same place that claimed DD had to be talked out of retiring at the end of ‘24 (Or, they certainly ran with it). That was total crap. Us “not meeting our available $ commitment to WW” is also total crap. We ended up using more $ than WW requested when he arrived.

Yeah it’s very well known Wade was expecting around $7.5M in NIL. He ended up getting $12.5 or around there. So the guy has been given A TON to work with. I hate it for him. He’s going to have sell sell sell to keep this cash flow coming in …

wolfpackguy42069 said:

Yeah see this is what I thought earlier in the year too. He said “top half of the ACC”. It’s semantics - but somewhere along the lines that morphed into “top 4?” So, I guess anything below top 4 is not mission accomplished. Either way, we could LEGIT be solidly and firmly 3rd right now lol.

The day he got hired, the goal was top four in the ACC and be a top 25 team nationally. His correct theory is that if the Wolfpack are consistently meeting those two goals, there will be a year they'll break through to Sweet 16 or better.