McNeese State makes case to be March Madness Cinderella with upset win over Clemson

PROVIDENCE, R.I.— Well, put it this way: As parting gifts go, this sure beats the case of Rice-a-Roni most folks got when their time on “The Price is Right” was done. In this case, McNeese gets a first-ever win in the NCAA Tournament. In this case, with the Cowboys coach, Will Wade, already signed, sealed and delivered to N.C.

State, with that becoming official the moment the Pokes are sent on their way, they decided instead to stick around a few extra days.Decided to keep their coach on the clock a couple extra days, too. “Just enough,” Wade said in the moments after McNeese 69, Clemson 67, was over, after they’d resisted a furious late rally by the Tigers to unwrap the first batch of slippers from this year’s first Cinderella and crashed the Midwest region party.

“We’ll take it!” They say there’s no more dangerous matchup for a higher seed than the right side of the hyphen in a 5-12 matchup? Clemson certainly understands now.The Tigers advanced to the Elite Eight last year and were 27-6, including 18-2 in the once-imperious ACC. But McNeese was coming in on an 11-game winning streak and, in a word, pulverized Clemson across the first 20 minutes.

It was 8-8 and then it was 18-8, and then it was 29-11.At the half Clemson had a shocking total of 13 points.

McNeese helped itself to 31 and went to the locker room to take hammers to an awful lot of brackets all across the country. “Luckily we had enough of a margin,” Wade said.“We knew they’d make a run and they did.” Some sloppy foul shooting from McNeese and some hot 3-point shooting late by Clemson closed the margin to 68-65 on a layup by Clemson’s Chauncey Wiggins with 12 seconds left, but Javohn Garcia made one of two free throws that wrapped it up. Quadir Copeland scored 16 points and added five assists for McNeese, while Brandon Murray came off the bench for 21 points, three steals and three assists. Want to tune into as much March Madness as you can? DIRECTV Stream...