Arms raised in the air and a big smile on his face, Will Wade ran to the first row of the McNeese cheering section after his team’s upset victory over Clemson and hugged or high-fived everyone he could reach.

It was a celebration that probably didn’t look all that different from what was going on inside the NC State athletic department building at the time.

One day after a flurry of reports that Wade has reached an agreement to become NC State’s next head coach, he offered the Wolfpack a glimpse of how significant a coaching upgrade they’ll be getting. No. 12 seed McNeese pulled off the first notable upset of this year’s NCAA tournament on Thursday afternoon, throttling fifth-seeded Clemson for 30-plus minutes and then withstanding a desperate last-gasp comeback from the Tigers.

[You could win $25K in the Women’s Bracket Mayhem contest. Enter now!]

The 69-67 final score doesn’t reflect the vice grip McNeese had for much of the game. The Cowboys led by 22 points with eight minutes to go against a Clemson team that went 18-2 in ACC play and was the only team in the league to post a win against Duke. McNeese celebrated its first NCAA tournament win in program history and earned a crack at No. 4 Purdue in the second round on Saturday.

The instant turnaround that Wade has engineered at McNeese illustrates how quickly he might be able to transform NC State into a top-tier ACC program. Taking advantage of McNeese’s newfound financial commitment to basketball success, Wade identified high-major transfers he wanted to pursue, persuaded them to come to a Southland Conference program and built teams that have combined for 58 wins in two years.

McNeese head coach Will Wade had plenty reason to celebrate after the Cowboys’ first-round upset win over Clemson on Thursday. (Ben Solomon/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)

McNeese’s win over Clemson is also a reminder of how down the ACC is these days. A league once synonymous with basketball dominance has fallen on hard times with so many of its coaching legends retiring and so many of its programs taking too long to embrace college basketball’s changing landscape. Only four of the ACC’s 18 teams received NCAA tournament bids this year. Louisville and now Clemson have already been eliminated.

Into that environment of mediocrity comes Wade, assuming his verbal agreement with NC State comes to fruition. He built a team at McNeese capable of competing at the top of the ACC. Imagine what he’ll be able to do with NC State’s resources and NIL budget.

The lingering question entering McNeese’s first-round matchup with Clemson was how invested the Cowboys would be. Would they be able to block out the distractions? Would they play as hard for a coach who, as Charles Barkley put it pregame, “is already out the door”?

Wade, for what it’s worth, thought those questions were ludicrous. He said his players would say he’s “been on one” coming into this game.

“Whatever else is happening, that’s no distraction to us,” Wade added. “I know everybody else thinks there’s distractions and stuff. We operate the same way all the time.”

Within minutes after tipoff, it became clear that Wade was right. McNeese was the aggressor from the start, opening a six-point lead midway through the first half, increasing it to double figures a minute later and extending the gap to 18 by halftime.

Aware that his faster, more athletic team was at a size disadvantage against Clemson down low, Wade decided to deviate from McNeese’s usual defensive scheme. The Cowboys played man-to-man on nearly 96% of their defensive possessions this season. On Thursday, they threw a variety of junk zone defenses at the Tigers.

To say that Clemson struggled to adjust is the understatement of understatements. The Tigers shot 5 for 24 from the field in the first half and 1 for 15 from behind the arc. They attempted only six first-half shots in the paint. Clemson’s leading scorers Chase Hunter and Ian Schieffelin entered Thursday averaging a combined 29-plus points per game. Neither scored a basket in the first 30 minutes against McNeese.

Clemson’s 13 points at halftime were just three more than the NCAA tournament record for first-half futility set by Wake Forest in 2001 and matched by Kent State in 2008. As Wade put it with a grin during an in-game interview late in the first half, “The junk’s working so far.”

While six missed McNeese foul shots helped Clemson whittle down the lead late in the second half, the Cowboys were never in serious jeopardy. Clemson still trailed by 12 with just over a minute to play and never had the ball with a chance to tie or take the lead.

It’s no surprise to see Wade finding success at McNeese, just like he previously did as the head coach at VCU and LSU. Questions about Wade have always focused on ethics, not his X’s and O’s.

When Wade was at LSU, he was caught on a federal wiretap describing the “strong-ass offer” he made to try to land guard Javonte Smart. LSU fired the embattled coach three years ago after receiving a notice of allegations from the NCAA detailing significant rules violations and misconduct.

Even though paying players is no longer against the rules in the NIL era of college sports, NC State’s hire of Wade will be polarizing. One outlet referred to him as a “slimeball” in a column about his hire. Others have labeled him a “renegade.”

Thursday was a reminder why NC State is taking this risk. Wade wins everywhere he goes.

For a program perennially in the shadow of its higher-profile Tobacco Road neighbors, that’s pretty appealing.