As the brackets for this year’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament were revealed on Selection Sunday, one team many people across Louisiana sports betting kept an eye out for was McNeese.
Long an also-ran in the Southland Conference, the Cowboys enjoyed their best season by far since becoming a Division I program more than a half-century ago. With a 30-3 mark, McNeese easily surpassed the previous record of 22 wins set in the 2000-01 season. It’s also nearly as many wins as the program earned in its last three seasons (32).
The Cowboys are dancing for just the third time in their NCAA history, their first bid since the 2001-02 campaign. And their No. 12 seed is the highest the school has earned in its history.
What’s behind this historic season under first-year coach Will Wade? The answer might be in the analytics.
LouisianaBets.com, home to the best Louisiana sports betting apps, averaged out each team’s 2023-24 player efficiency ratings (PER) from Sports-Reference.com. We then ranked the teams based on the highest average team PER. PER is an advanced stat created by former basketball executive turned columnist John Hollinger to determine a player’s per-minute value based on their performance.
Based on this, the McNeese Cowboys have the most efficient team, with an average PER of 20.36.
Top 15 Highest Average Player Efficiency
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Wade landed the McNeese job after being fired by LSU after the 2021-22 season for actions he took that led the NCAA to sanction the Tigers. The Cowboys hired Wade even though the NCAA slapped a show-cause punishment on him, a measure that forced Wade to sit out the team’s first 10 games this season. Further, McNeese runs the risk of harsher penalties should the NCAA determine the program violated rules during Wade’s show-cause period was enforced.
It seems as if the move is paying off big time for the Cowboys, and operators like ClutchBet Louisiana have in turn shown them respect all season.
Like Wade, this year’s team features several newcomers. Among starters, senior guard Shahada Wells, who transferred this season after playing the past two as a reserve for TCU, has the highest PER at 27.9. That leads the Southland Conference and is 19th-best nationally.
Junior guard Christian Shumate, who has played the last three seasons in Lake Charles, has a 22.6 PER. Another starting guard, junior Javohn Garcia, who came to McNeese this year after playing for a junior college last season and Massachusetts the two years before that, has a PER of 19.3.
As a 12-seed, the Cowboys are being studied by many people trying to fill out their brackets in hopes of picking the right underdog to score a first-round upset and maybe even make their way to the Sweet 16. McNeese has the chops, as its non-conference schedule includes an 87-76 win at Michigan and an 81-60 victory at tourney-bound UAB, but the Cowboys’ first-round opponent is Gonzaga, which just happens to be fifth in these rankings.
Despite the challenging first-round game Thursday night in Salt Lake City, some bettors are still seeking ways to get some money on the Cowboys. According to Troy Machir at BetRivers, nearly two-thirds of the tickets placed on the game’s point spread are on McNeese getting 6.5 points.
At BetMGM Louisiana, McNeese has odds of +8000 to win the Midwest Region as a Cinderella and +35000 to win it all.
