After winning the Southland Tournament, McNeese is going to its second-straight NCAA Tournament under head coach Will Wade.
Will Wade and his band of Cowboys returned for a second season in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and the sequel to last season’s success largely lived up to the expectations.
The journeyman coach continued to hit in the portal, replacing senior guards with good-get transfers Quadir Copeland (Syracuse) and Sincere Parker (Saint Louis). The fresh roster didn’t lead to immediate nonconference success, with McNeese going 6-5, including two wins against non-Division I teams like Biblical Studies and LeTourneau.
Last season, there was a buzz around Wade’s immediate success with diamond-in-the-rough transfers. Did you see they beat VCU? They took down Louisiana and Michigan in two straight games!
This year, fans of the outlaw coach had merely a tough loss to Alabama and a close contest with Santa Clara as their clearest signs of potential.
The Cowboys then went on a 21-1 run in the Southland, losing their lone game to Nicholls on the road but finishing league play with an average margin of +14 points. In their nonconference schedule, Bart Torvik had McNeese as the 82nd-best team in the country. Over the span of the Southland regular season and tournament, however, they’ve been playing as the 59th-best team.
In that conference tournament final hosted by McNeese, the Cowboys dispatched Lamar 63-54. Wade’s team snuffed out the Cardinals by limiting them to 30.8 percent shooting from the field while recording eight blocks and eight steals. It was the lowest shooting percentage for Lamar all season.
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A team approach in a better Southland
McNeese is intriguing because of its collective approach to scoring. Wade has four players averaging double figures this season, with two more averaging at least 8.7 points. Senior Jahvon Garcia returned for a second season and has grown into Wade’s lead offensive weapon, averaging 12.9 points and 1.9 assists. While his efficiency has dipped with higher volume on the perimeter, he’s remained steady inside the arc, shooting 46.8 percent on 2-pointers. His 17-point average over two games last week garnered Southland Tournament MVP honors.
As for Copeland, the former Syracuse player has been a solid lead guard for the Cowboys. He owns the 15th-highest assist rate in the country (37.8) and averages 9.0 points, 4.5 assists, 3.3 rebounds and 1.3 steals for the year. Senior Christian Shumate has taken a smaller role, but he has raised his efficiency to continuing making a strong impact. The 6-foot-6 forward has shot 70 percent from inside the arc on 170 attempts while maintaining a stellar block rate (6.3) on the other end.
Detractors may bring up how bad the Southland has been historically, which perhaps did limit McNeese’s tournament potential last season. But the league has improved over the past 12 months, going from six teams ranked outside the KenPom top 300 to just two in 2025. And for the first time in KenPom’s tracking history, the Southland has five top-200 teams.
Will a similar profile Cowboys team avoid repeating a first round exit?
McNeese was a sexy second-weekend dark horse last season, largely because of their draw. The Cowboys faced a Gonzaga team that looked lost for the first three months of the season, and they would have potentially played a Kansas team derailed by injuries and lack of cohesion in the final month.
But, sneakily, the Zags were playing their best basketball by that point, and they had the size and athleticism to minimize the Cowboys’ ability to affect the margins of the games through hunting loose balls and creating turnovers.
The largest question for the Cowboys is whether or not they have a guy who can spur them to an upset should they get a favorable matchup. As great of a facilitator Copeland has been this season, he’s replacing Shahada Wells, who was a lead guard that could get a tough bucket when needed.
Wells had a usage rate of nearly 29 percent last season, and he took 29.3 percent of the shots when he was out on the floor. The closest replacement on this roster is Parker, who comes off the bench, but he’s shooting a career-low mark on his 3-pointers (29.3%). If he can’t get back to his career average of 36 percent by the end of this week, it may be tough for Wade’s team to match a higher seed blow for blow.
Ultimately, the draw will decide whether or not Wade gets to play Bayou Bandit against the higher-seeded team, or if student manager Amir Khan gets to ink even more NIL deals, or walk the team through the tunnels to Lud Floe or King Von multiple times in the final weeks of March.
Similar NCAA Tournament efficiency profiles
Tournament Index evaluation
As it stands, McNeese is a projected No. 12 seed by our bracketology at Heat Check CBB and on the Bracket Matrix. The Tournament Index gives the Cowboys a power rating of 63.8, equivalent to the 14th-strongest 12-seed of the 40 teams that made the first round of past 10 tournaments.
No. 12 seeds with TI power ratings over 63.0 (15 teams) have combined for 10 NCAA Tournament wins over the last 10 years. Meanwhile, 12-seeds below that mark (25 teams) have won nine games, including three by 2021 Oregon State. As seen in the chart above, the Beavers that made that Elite Eight run are among the Cowboys’ closest comparisons in terms of efficiency profile and seeding.
If the Cowboys move up a line, they would rate slightly below-average as a No. 11 seed as compared to the rest of Round of 64 qualifiers since 2013. Should they drop, they would be a stronger No. 13 seed than any other from the past 10 tournament fields. The TI projects an average of 0.48 wins for McNeese given its projected seed and strength.
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