Will Wade: “arrogance got me in trouble” at LSU

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“I’d be lying if I told you I thought three years ago that I knew an opportunity like this would come again,” Wade said during his introductory news conference Tuesday. “I did not, I did not. I'm thankful."

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There were also offerings of humility and contrition. He thanked McNeese for taking “a chance" on him. He promised a passionate approach here “without all the arrogance that got me in trouble," adding N.C. State would “get the best version of me.”

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During a later interview with The Associated Press, Wade also refused to use today's changed climate in the sport — with allegations of payments tied to Wade's LSU ouster essentially legal now with college athletes allowed to profit from their fame — as a pass.

“That to me is a cop-out," Wade told the AP. “When I was doing that, it was illegal. Just because it’s legal now doesn’t mean it was the right thing to do then. And I think that’s the way that some people rationalize some things, but that’s not the reality of what it was. It wasn’t right to do then and, you know, I paid for it.”

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Wade said during his news conference that the LSU aftermath forced him to have “some hard conversations" with himself. Wolfpack athletic director Boo Corrigan needed to hear about those, too, when he met with Wade in Houston during the search.

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"You've still got to have the same confidence, but it’s not a cockiness or an arrogance to the sense of you’re never going to get caught or nothing’s ever going to (happen),” Wade told the AP. “That’s where the line is.”

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