JS: McNeal article

[mu_hilltopper]

Boys to men
The gym rat
'This other guy' a real hard worker

Posted: Mar. 14, 2009

Every teenager looks forward to something different when first heading off to college.

It might be the independence, or meeting new friends. It could be moving across the country, or the chance to begin working toward a chosen career.

For Jerel McNeal, it was a 2- by 3-inch piece of plastic - quite literally, his key to basketball paradise - that he received once he arrived at Marquette University in the summer of 2005.

"The biggest thing to me was just the excitement to be able to have a gym that had 24-hour access," the senior guard recounted recently. "Coming out of high school, I was amazed by that. It was this big thing. 'Oh, man, I've got a swipe card. I can go in anytime I want.'

"I just remember loving to be here all the time and playing and just being ready to come in and start competing and make a name for myself."

Not the least bit surprising for a self-professed "super gym rat" from the south side of Chicago who literally had to be pushed out the door after practices by his coach at Hillcrest High School.

It was there, as well as on the AAU circuit, that McNeal first forged his reputation as a hard-nosed competitor who never backed down from a challenge. He was recruited intermittently by instate schools Illinois and DePaul, but ultimately chose MU from among Purdue and Dayton because of the potential to start immediately in the Big East Conference.

As the least heralded of the Golden Eagles' much-hyped "Big Three" recruiting class, McNeal was thrown into the fire from the outset along with Dominic James and Wesley Matthews.

"As far as the hype surrounding me coming in, I knew exactly how it was," he said. "Wes was Mr. Basketball in the state of Wisconsin, 'Nic was one of the top point guards in the nation, and I was sort of just this other guy from Chicago, which was something that I completely understood and knew coming in.

"But it was a situation where my whole entire career had been like that, so it was no different."

McNeal was solid in his role as a do-everything shooting guard, averaging 11.1 points and 4.5 rebounds as a freshman and 14.7 points and 4.8 rebounds as a sophomore while complementing first Steve Novak and then James. MU, meanwhile, ran off 20 and 24 victories, getting itself back into the national picture.

He was named the Big East's defensive player of the year in 2006-'07, but a thumb injury he suffered in early March submarined the Golden Eagles' postseason, and they lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament for the second straight year without him.

"My main focus was always to do whatever my team needed me to do to help win games," he said. "It was a situation where I kind of got in where I fit in. The main thing was I needed to hit the glass and rebound, move the ball and play unbelievable defense."

McNeal's role shifted somewhat as a junior, but the hard work never stopped. Topping his agenda was improving his shooting range and reducing his turnovers, two glaring weaknesses to that point.

He got off to a fast start, posting his first consecutive 20-point outings at the Maui Invitational, but by mid-January McNeal had hit the wall. Not only was he struggling on offense, he wasn't getting it done on the defensive end of the court, either. It was at that point Buzz Williams, then in his first year as an assistant to Tom Crean, got the green light to take a different approach with McNeal.

"I was watching tape with Coach Crean, and the conversation came up," Williams said. "He said, 'Buzz, you ought to talk to him.' I said, 'No, Coach, I don't need to talk to him.' And he said, 'Why?' And I said, 'Because I'm going to tell him the truth.' "

After some back and forth, Crean finally persuaded Williams to pull McNeal aside. So he did, and the two wound up hashing things out in the stands of the arena at the Al McGuire Center for nearly an hour and a half.

"I told him what I thought, and I don't think that he was prepared to hear what I had to say," Williams said. "And I think at that time, I had enough of a relationship with him that he was respectful enough to listen.

"I don't know that you can write anything I said. But I know it was a conversation he did not anticipate having."

McNeal chuckles when looking back on it. But he's also grateful that Williams took the time, because he emerged from the conversation realizing he had to rediscover that "junkyard dog" mentality that had helped get him to that point.

By early March he was playing the best basketball he ever had, averaging 23.0 points and 6.2 rebounds over MU's final seven games and shooting 52.3% overall and 42.4% from three-point range.

"It was something that I needed to hear and after that I just got back to doing what I always do - just free-flowing playing," he said. "And that's really when I started playing the best I had all year, and at the same time the team was winning games."

Williams, who takes no credit for the turnaround, has leaned heavily on McNeal since being named Crean's successor last April.

In the meantime, McNeal has become MU's all-time scoring and steals leader, a first team all-Big East performer and a likely National Basketball Association draft pick in June, all the while continuing to be the first into the gym and the last to leave, just as he was when he first obtained that cherished swipe card nearly four years ago.

"I'm happy that I'm in the situation that I'm in, and I was able to progress and become the player that I've become and have the career with my team and the other teammates I've had over these last four years," he said. "But it's a situation where I feel like I've still got a lot more to prove people wrong about."

At least one of McNeal's teammates needs no more convincing, though. James recalled recently a conversation he had with McNeal last summer that underscored how much the game means to him.

"He was just, like, 'I love basketball. This is what I do.' And that's when it really hit me," James said. "This was just a friendship talk, and it was just, like, one of those moments. And I was just, like, 'Damn, this dude is for real.' "

Never have truer words been spoken.