McNeese hosts Men’s Basketball Tip-Off Celebration

LAKE CHARLES, La. (KPLC) - Thursday night the McNeese Cowboys basketball team hosted a Tip-Off Celebration with the entire team in attendance.

As head coach of the Cowboys Will Wade enters his first season, fan support has been one of his priorities whether it be out in the community or on social media, and with this event happening he feels like it was a great opportunity to see that vision in motion.

“It’s a lot of fun, I think it’s great for our kids to meet everybody and for everybody to meet our guys because we’ve got really good kids,” said Coach Wade. “They’re really good basketball players and are very talented people off the court as well, I thought it was good for our fans to interact because it creates a connection with them, and with that, they’re more likely to come support all of the things that we are doing, and so I thought today was a good building block for what we’re trying to do.”

There are 11 new players on this year’s roster, and with that some adjustments for all of those new players. TCU transfer guard Shahada Wells has only been in Lake Charles for a few months, but the lake area is already beginning to feel like home.

“It’s been a little different, I’ve been in Texas schools for my whole career and this is my first time moving to Louisiana, so been a little different, but I’m starting to get a feel for it and the community is great,” said Wells. “I really love it here, it’s a great feeling when you got the community behind your back, and the people from McNeese, and from Lake Charles have just surrounded me and that’s just a great feeling all overall.”

Christian Shumate, who put his name in the transfer portal after the Cowboy’s past season ended, decided to return and is excited about getting fans out to see what this team is capable of.

“We thank the community for supporting us and I think we going to do something great this year,” said Shumate. “We want to get everybody here, we want to get everybody loud, we want to get everybody to fill up this gym, we just want to have a good time and we want to win for everybody, it means a lot to us and we want to get this place (Legacy Center) packed.”

The event ended with 19 different auctioned items and a Will Wade speech that provided fans with what they should expect from this year’s team as we are now only about a couple of months away from the start of the season when the Cowboys travel to take on the VCU Rams on November 6.

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