PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — McNeese coach Will Wade and his boombox-toting manager gave March Madness its first bracket buster.
The 12th-seeded Cowboys used a stifling first half to open a 24-point lead, and then held off late-charging No. 5 seed Clemson for the program's first NCAA Tournament victory, a 69-67 win in the opening round of the East Region on Thursday.
“We have broken every record in the book," said Wade, who led the school to its first back-to-back appearances in the NCAA Tournament and now its first victory. “This was the last one to get. We want to keep this going. We want to keep this going.”
McNeese earned a matchup on Saturday with fourth-seeded Purdue, a 75-63 winner over High Point earlier in Providence.
Brandon Murray scored 14 of his 21 points in the first half, when the Southland Conference school from Lake Charles, Louisiana, held Clemson to 13 points. After falling behind by as many as 24 in the second, the Tigers rallied, erasing most of a 12-point deficit in the final minute before running out of time.
“We went out there and took the first punch and they didn’t know how to react to that, honestly,” Murray said. “Coach tells us to be ourselves, play with swag. That’s what we’re going to do.”
Chris Shumate added 13 points and 11 rebounds for McNeese, which has been best-known this March for its viral, rapping manager and a renegade coach who has reportedly already lined up his next job — at NC State.
The Wolfpack will have to wait at least another 48 hours, because Wade is still needed in Providence.
Wade celebrated by running into the stands join the McNeese crowd — though even the neutral observers were rooting for the Cowboys against the Tigers from the powerful Atlantic Coast Conference. When he arrived in the locker room, his players doused him with water.
“Coach Wade made this plan. This is not something that started just now,” guard Quadir Copeland said. “This is something that’s been a goal the whole way and it's been amazing.”
A 7½-point underdog, McNeese (28-6) held the Tigers to one basket over almost eight minutes during a 17-2 first-half run that turned a tie game into a 23-8 lead. After Clemson (27-7) scored the first three points of the second, the Cowboys ran off nine in a row and led by as many as 24 points.
Jaeden Zackery scored 24 points, Chase Hunter had 21 and Viktor Lakhin grabbed 10 rebounds for Clemson before fouling out with six minutes left in the game.
The once-feared ACC is down to two teams: No. 1 seed Duke and North Carolina, one of the last teams in. No. 8 seed Louisville lost to ninth-seeded Creighton in another of the tournament's first games.
With 70 seconds left, Javohn Garcia blocked Zackery twice on the same shot and Shumate streaked toward the basket for the long pass and reverse dunk that gave the Cowboys a 12-point lead.
But Zackery hit a 3-pointer with 45 seconds left to make it a nine-point game, Jake Heidbreder hit one to cut the deficit to six, and then, after Sincere Parker’s reverse dunk brought the crowd to its feet, Zackery hit another 3 to make it 67-62.
After McNeese missed a free throw — one of six missed foul shots in the final six minutes — Chauncey Wiggins hit a long 3 to make it a three-point game. Another missed free throw gave Clemson the ball with 10 seconds left, down four.
Hunter drove to the basket, but scored as time expired.
Wade was fired from LSU amid an investigation into recruiting violations, and he took a year off before returning to Louisiana at McNeese. In two seasons, he has led the Cowboys to their first back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances.
Teams have gone cold before – 11 of them have been held to a baker’s dozen or fewer points in the first half – but Clemson is just the second one to do it when seeded fifth or better since the shot clock era began in 1986.
Clemson was 1 for 15 from 3-point range in the first half and made just five baskets before the break.
The Cowboys head into the Purdue game with a 9-5 record in nonconference games this year, including two losses to SEC teams in the regular season. Under Wade, they are 1-0 against the Big Ten, beating Michigan in Ann Arbor last year.
AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness. Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here.
Clemson guard Jaeden Zackery, left, react after a loss to McNeese State in the first round of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Thursday, March 20, 2025, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
LONDON (AP) — The British government on Saturday ordered an investigation into the country's “energy resilience” after an electrical substation fire shut Heathrow Airport for almost a day and raised concerns about the U.K.'s ability to withstand disasters or attacks on critical infrastructure.
While Heathrow Airport said it was “fully operational” on Saturday, thousands of passengers remained stuck, and airlines warned that severe disruption will last for days as they scramble to relocate planes and crews and get travelers to their destinations.
Inconvenienced passengers, angry airlines and concerned politicians all want answers about how one seemingly accidental fire could shut down Europe’s busiest air hub.
“This is a huge embarrassment for Heathrow airport. It’s a huge embarrassment for the country that a fire in one electricity substation can have such a devastating effect," said Toby Harris, a Labour Party politician who heads the National Preparedness Commission, a group that campaigns to improve resilience.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said he'd asked the National Energy System Operator, which oversees U.K. gas and electricity networks, to "urgently investigate" the fire, “to understand any wider lessons to be learned on energy resilience for critical national infrastructure."
It is expected to report initial findings within six weeks.
“The government is determined to do everything it can to prevent a repeat of what happened at Heathrow," Miliband said.
More than 1,300 flights were canceled and some 200,000 people stranded Friday after an overnight fire at a substation 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) away from the airport cut power to Heathrow, and to more than 60,000 properties.
Heathrow said Saturday it had “added flights to today’s schedule to facilitate an extra 10,000 passengers." British Airways, Heathrow’s biggest airline, said it expected to operate about 85% of its 600 scheduled flights at the airport on Saturday.
While many passengers managed to resume stalled journeys, others remained in limbo.
Laura Fritschie from Kansas City was on vacation with her family in Ireland when she learned that her father had died. On Saturday she was stranded at Heathrow after her BA flight to Chicago was canceled at the last minute.
“I’m very frustrated," she said. “This was my first big vacation with my kids since my husband died, and ... now this. So I just want to go home.”
Residents in west London described hearing a large explosion and then seeing a fireball and clouds of smoke when the blaze ripped through the substation. The fire was brought under control after seven hours, but the airport was shut for almost 18 hours. A handful of flights took off and landed late Friday.
Police said they do not consider the fire suspicious, and the London Fire Brigade said its investigation would focus on the electrical distribution equipment at the substation.
Still, the huge impact of the fire left authorities facing questions about Britain’s creaking infrastructure. The government acknowledged that authorities had questions to answer and said a rigorous investigation was needed to make sure “this scale of disruption does not happen again.”
Harris, from the preparedness commission, said the airport shutdown points to a broader problem.
“The last 40, 50 years we’ve tried to make services more efficient,” he said. “We’ve stripped out redundancy, we’ve simplified processes. We’ve moved towards a sort of ‘just in time’ economy.
“There is an element where you have to make sure you’re available for ‘just in case.’ You have to plan for things going wrong.”
Heathrow is one of the world’s busiest airports for international travel, and saw 83.9 million passengers last year.
Chief executive Thomas Woldbye said he was “proud” of the way airport and airline staff had responded.
“The airport didn’t shut for days. We shut for hours,” he told the BBC.
Woldbye said Heathrow's backup power supply, designed for emergencies, worked as expected, but it wasn’t enough to run the whole airport, which uses as much energy as a small city.
“That’s how most airports operate," said Woldbye, who insisted “the same would happen in other airports" faced with a similar blaze.
But Willie Walsh, who heads aviation trade organization IATA, said the episode “begs some serious questions.”
“How is it that critical infrastructure – of national and global importance – is totally dependent on a single power source without an alternative? If that is the case, as it seems, then it is a clear planning failure by the airport,” he said.
Walsh said “Heathrow has very little incentive to improve” because airlines, not the airport, have to pay the cost of looking after disrupted passengers.
Friday’s disruption was one of the most serious since the 2010 eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which shut Europe’s airspace for days.
Passengers on about 120 flights were in the air when Friday's closure was announced and found themselves landing in different cities, and even different countries.
Mark Doherty and his wife were halfway across the Atlantic when the inflight map showed their flight from New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport to Heathrow was turning around.
“I was like, you’re joking,” Doherty said before the pilot told passengers they were heading back to New York.
Doherty called the situation “typical England — got no back-up plan for something happens like this. There’s no contingency plan.”
Associated Press journalist Kwiyeon Ha at Heathrow Airport contributed to this report.
Travellers arrive at Terminal 2 as Heathrow Airport slowly resumes flights after a fire cut power to Europe's busiest airport in London, Saturday, March 22, 2025.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Passengers in the arrivals hall at Heathrow Terminal 5 in London, Saturday March 22, 2025, after flights resumed at the airport. (Maja Smiejkowska/PA via AP)
A man takes a photo of the flight information display in the arrivals hall at Heathrow Terminal 5 in London, Saturday March 22, 2025, after flights resumed at the airport. (Maja Smiejkowska/PA via AP)
A British Airways plane approaches landing as Heathrow Airport slowly resumes flights after a fire cut power to Europe's busiest airport in London, Saturday, March 22, 2025.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Travellers wait outside the Terminal as Heathrow Airport slowly resumes flights after a fire cut power to Europe's busiest airport in London, Saturday, March 22, 2025.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Travellers check the information board in London, Saturday, March 22, 2025, as Heathrow Airport slowly resumes flights after a fire cut power to Europe's busiest airport.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
The airport arrivals board at Terminal 5 as Britain's Heathrow Airport has closed for the full day Friday after an electrical substation fire knocked out its power, disrupting flights for hundreds of thousands of passengers at one of Europe's biggest travel hubs in London, Friday, March 21, 2025.(AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
A British Airways plane is parked at Terminal 5 as Britain's Heathrow Airport has closed for the full day Friday after an electrical substation fire knocked out its power, disrupting flights for hundreds of thousands of passengers at one of Europe's biggest travel hubs in London, Friday, March 21, 2025.(AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Workers are seen as smoke rises from the North Hyde electrical substation, which caught fire last night, leading to the closure of the Heathrow Airport, in London, Friday March 21, 2025.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
A handwritten sign at a Heathrow Airport tube station in London indicates the airport is closed on Friday March 21, 2025, following a fire at the North Hyde electrical substation the previous night.(AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
A plane is prepared whilst another airplane approaches landing at Heathrow Airport after a fire at an electrical substation shuttered Europe's busiest air travel hub in London, Friday, March 21, 2025.(AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
A traveller arrives at Terminal 5 as Heathrow Airport slowly resumes flights after a fire cut power to Europe's busiest airport in London, Saturday, March 22, 2025.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Travellers wait at Terminal 5 as Heathrow Airport slowly resumes flights after a fire cut power to Europe's busiest airport in London, Saturday, March 22, 2025.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Travellers arrive at Terminal 5 as Heathrow Airport slowly resumes flights after a fire cut power to Europe's busiest airport in London, Saturday, March 22, 2025.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Travellers arrive at Terminal 5 as Heathrow Airport slowly resumes flights after a fire cut power to Europe's busiest airport in London, Saturday, March 22, 2025.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Travellers arrives at Terminal 5 as Heathrow Airport slowly resumes flights after a fire cut power to Europe's busiest airport in London, Saturday, March 22, 2025.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
