McNeal named second team AP All-American
Mar. 30, 2009 12:40 p.m.
Jerel McNeal was named second team All-American by the Associated Press on Monday, the highest individual post-season honor for a Marquette Golden Eagles player in six years.
Dwyane Wade was a consensus first team AP All-American in 2003.
"Just sitting here thinking about it, and looking at the list of players, it means a lot," McNeal said. "It's an unbelievable accomplishment just to be mentioned, to be considered in the same category as some of these players.
"A lot of these guys were still playing up until last night, are still going to be playing up until next weekend, and all of them are respectively the best players on their teams. It's an honor just to be mentioned in that category."
McNeal, who was also named first team all-Big East earlier in the month, is joined on the second team by Connecticut's Hasheem Thabeet, Notre Dame's Luke Harangody, North Carolina's Ty Lawson and Kentucky's Jodie Meeks.
McNeal averaged 19.8 points, 4.5 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 2.0 steals per game for MU, which advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament and finished the season 25-10.
It's interesting to note that two of the Big East's higher-profile players -- Louisville forward Terrence Williams and Pittsburgh's Sam Young -- were both named to the third team.
"Those two guys are two guys who were on top-10 teams nearly the whole season, got a lot more exposure, a lot more pub and there were a lot more people hyping those guys up," McNeal said. "But at the same time we were having a really good year as well, and somebody out there felt I was playing just as well or better than those guys, even though we weren't getting as much recognition as a team.
"The Big East as a conference is representing really well. It's just the best of the best, and it's just an unbelievable honor."
McNeal also leaves MU as the all-time leader in scoring (1,985 points), steals (287), field goals (726), field-goal attempts (1,649) and games played (130).
Travis Diener (2004-'05) and Dominic James (2006-'07) were each named honorable mention by the AP.
McNeal said he took about five days off last week, and has just started getting back into the gym to ready himself for the coming weeks and months ahead as he heads into the NBA draft process.
He'll begin interviewing potential agents next week, and has been in communication with the likes of former MU greats Steve Novak and Travis Diener, both of whom have been through the process and have made themselves available to provide advice.
McNeal has also declined an invitation to participate in the Portsmouth Invitational, an annual showcase for college players projected to be anywhere from late first-round picks on. Novak, for instance, turned in a solid showing there back in 2006 and wound up being a high second-round pick.
"I'm just going to go straight to the workouts, when they open up," he said. "It's a situation where you can go down there, you may be put on a bad team and you might not be able to put up the type of performance that you want to. At the same time, you might get put on a good team and get a lot of good exposure.
"Just through the process, and a lot of the people I talked to pertaining to me, going there regardless of what happened, the odds are I have a bigger chance of hurting my stock or changing my stock from how it could be. It was almost like a lose-lose situation: if I went there and I had a great showing and I destroyed everybody there, then it's kind of like, 'He's supposed to do that.'
"But at the same time, if you go there and you don't play as well, it's like, 'Oh, maybe he's not as good.' It's a situation where I took the advice of some people that are close to me and just tried to make the best decision. The only thing I don't like about it, just from a competitive aspect, is I don't ever want anybody to get the wrong idea about me being a competitor.
"If it was something I felt I needed to do or had to do, I'd be all in with that as well, getting ready to go down there and just have a good showing."
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