Aces can count as little or big in blackjack, but when you’re a 6-foot-8-inch, 250-pound basketball player, you’re expected to work the low post and keep saying, “hit me.”
Aaron McGhee’s Oklahoma teammates call him “Ace” because of his considerable scoring and rebounding skills, but it has taken him five seasons and three programs to learn to use the body nature dealt him.
McGhee, the former East Aurora High School standout whose team will meet Arizona on Thursday in the NCAA West Regional semifinal in San Jose (6:55 p.m., WBBM-Ch. 2), has an adroit outside shot and an 81 percent free-throw percentage. But when he arrived in Norman after a season at Cincinnati and a junior-college detour to Vincennes (Ind.) University, he still wasn’t asserting himself under the basket.
“When we got him, he looked a lot better than he played,” Sooners coach Kelvin Sampson said. “I used to tell him, `You’re the only guy I know who looks like Godzilla and plays like a nun.’ I meant that to get him to understand how soft he played. He’s a kid that had this great body, yet didn’t like contact.”
McGhee smiled when reminded of the comment, which stung but had the desired effect.
“I knew I was more than capable of playing better,” he said. “That’s all he wanted. … It took me a season to realize what major college basketball was all about.
“I like to shoot. That’s no secret. God gave me this big body, so I might as well use it.”
It has all come together this season for the 22-year-old senior, who averaged 15 points and nearly eight rebounds a game during the regular season and finally seems to have conquered his tendency to play like a small forward encased in a power forward’s armor.
The contradiction has dogged McGhee throughout his career, starting with his years at East Aurora, where he was named second-team All-State in 1996-97.
“He was pretty much unstoppable one-on-one his senior year,” said his high school coach, Scott Martens. “He averaged over 24 points a game, and that was with two people hanging on him most of the time.
“But he was pretty weak. I don’t think he could have done 20 pushups. Before his last season, I went out and bought weights for all the players, and I brought a set to his house in hopes that he’d use them to bulk up. I didn’t see a lot of progress, and when I picked up the weights after the season, they were still in the box.”
McGhee sat out the 1997-98 season due to academic ineligibility. The following year, the Bearcats’ roster bristled with talent and McGhee played sparingly, averaging only eight minutes a game. One of his least memorable appearances came against crosstown rival Xavier, when he came off the bench, committed a lane violation seconds later and was promptly yanked.
“I have to give him a lot of credit,” said Xavier All-American forward David West, whose team fell to Oklahoma in the second round Sunday. “He has improved remarkably from what I remember. He’s a strong, physical guy, and he’s tough to defend, because he’s a lefty.”
McGhee decided his prospects with the Bearcats weren’t bright enough, and departed for Vincennes. “When I left Cincinnati, for a while I didn’t even want to play basketball,” he said.
Sampson came calling even before McGhee’s stellar junior-college season, where he set a school single-season scoring record of 874 points.
The transition wasn’t always smooth. Twice last season Sampson sent McGhee packing from practice. On other occasions he has asked McGhee to show up early, then had other coaches or players pound him with pads used in football drills as he drove inside. “He’s a [small forward] in personality,” Sampson said. “He had to really work to absorb the banging.”
McGhee’s game has been transformed and his mind-set altered: “Just my desire,” he said. “I started having more love for the game.”
He still lets it fly regularly from 12 to 15 feet out but knows how to batter his way to scoring opportunities–and fouls–in traffic as well.
“He lives for the pounding,” said Illinois-Chicago coach Jimmy Collins, whose Flames fell to Oklahoma (29-4) on Friday thanks partly to McGhee’s 13th double-double of the season. McGhee scored a total of 51 points and collected 17 rebounds in the games against UIC and Xavier for the best back-to-back performances of his career.
“I always thought he was going to be this good,” Collins said. “That’s why I recruited him. He’s finally fallen into a program where somebody’s cared, and somebody who knew he had those kinds of talents has exploited them.”
Sampson has seen enough to withdraw his long-ago cartoonish comparison.
“I don’t rein Aaron in as much as I used to,” the coach said. “His shot selection is much better. He still gets a little frisky with his three-point shots.
“Aaron has become a wonderful inside player. He’s not a great finisher, but he’s so much better now. He’s developed a toughness that goes along with his body. He’s not a nun anymore.”
