Since high school, Sixers' T.J. McConnell has proven he belongs

Since 1999, Carl Arrigale has shepherded quite a few talented basketball teams at Saints John Neumann and Maria Goretti Catholic High School in South Philly. According to records kept by Ted Silary, the coach’s record at the school currently sits at a not-too-shabby 423-92.

Among all of that winning, Neumann-Goretti’s 2009-10 team has to rank at or near the very top. That year, the Saints finished 30-1 against a loaded national schedule and the always tough Philadelphia Catholic League. In the final USA Today Super 25, the Saints were ranked fifth after taking down eventual state champions from North Carolina, New York, and Illinois (Simeon, featuring a freshman named Jabari Parker).

It’s established that N-G was pretty darn good that year. And yet despite their overwhelming talent level, Arrigale and the Saints were at the mercy of an underdog’s three-point shot in the final seconds of the PIAA Class AAA final. If the ball found twine, one of the country’s best teams would have been shockingly upset by a public school about 15 minutes southwest of downtown Pittsburgh.

(Photo courtesy of tedsilary.com)

The shooter? Sixers point guard T.J. McConnell. The shot? Off the rim, short. The result? Neumann-Goretti 65, Chartiers Valley 63.

“I was kind of fading away, and it didn’t feel good coming off my hands,” McConnell said. “I didn’t think it was going in.”

All five N-G starters went on to play Division I ball (including La Salle’s Tyreek Duren and Villanova’s Tony Chennault), but six years later, McConnell is the only one from that game plying his trade in the NBA. Still, he remembers how good the Saints were.

“Throughout the game, it kept getting closer,” McConnell said. “We were like, ‘We actually have a chance to win this thing,’ but they were phenomenal.”

And while N-G had way more balance, what stood out to their coach was that, despite all of the heavy lifting required of McConnell, how much energy the opponent’s star guard had after the game compared to his own exhausted players. Most of the Saints were running on fumes, but McConnell sure wasn’t.

“I thought as if that kid could have played another game,” Arrigale said. “He was that in shape, or I don’t know if it was just that he was doing whatever he had to do to not be denied, but I felt like he could have continued playing.”

Take a look at the box score from that night in March 2010 and McConnell’s line jumps out right away: 32 points (13-32 FG, 4-8 FT, 12 rebounds, 1 assist, 3 rebounds. Look at all of those shots, and where are the assists?

This isn’t the same player we see backing up Ish Smith every night. Check out where he ranks among the 19 rookies that have played over 500 minutes in assist rate and usage percentage (percentage of possessions when a player shoots, turns ball over, or shoots free throws), high and low:

(Source: Basketball Reference)

On the assist front, that number is excellent for someone who went undrafted. And as you see, it’s a major departure from the player who averaged 34.4 points per game during his senior year of high school. In the final game, N-G threw the kitchen sink at McConnell, who just had to keep hoisting out of necessity. He was the only player who could consistently create against what wasn’t Rob Ryan’s Saints defense.

“If he takes 20 shots instead of 30 [in the state final], we probably win by 15,” Arrigale said.

McConnell’s transition from scorer to facilitator is something I personally find interesting. Nerlens Noel has been a shot-blocker for a long time, and the same goes for Jahlil Okafor with his interior scoring. They are forced to make adjustments to the professional game, but not the same type of tweaks as McConnell. What is it like to change your game up so drastically?

High school hoops in Western Pennsylvania generally isn’t as deep as it is here, but McConnell feels like his area gets underrated. Whether or not that is the case, the 23-year-old point guard said that the NBA is “a whole different animal” from the Pac-12, much less the PIAA.

So, if you ask him, taking fewer shots came naturally.

“The transition hasn’t been hard at all, going from shooting a lot a lot in high school to being pass-first,” McConnell said. “I like to get my teammates involved, it’s just as fun as scoring.”

(Just as fun, he says, even if dabbing is reserved for after three-pointers…)

For obvious reasons, McConnell has been a player who has been doubted when facing a step-up in competition: High school to Duquesne, transferring from Duquesne to Arizona (where the Wildcats made the Elite Eight in each of his two years there), and finally Arizona to the NBA.

There aren’t any more jumps left, and McConnell very much looks like he belongs. There were six point guards (well, five and an undersized 2 in Isaiah Canaan) at Stockton College for training camp, and considering how Smith wasn’t one of them, he clearly won that competition.

“Some of those guys have turned out very well and we’re very proud of like T.J. McConnell who I think is an NBA player and has done well for us in his role,” Sam Hinkie said a few weeks ago. “Sometimes his role may have been a little bigger a little than what he was ready for at the time, but he’s done well for us.”

Hinkie is on to something when mentioning McConnell’s role. Smith is receiving a ton of credit for the team’s turnaround (and rightfully so), but one of his arrival’s major benefits has been allowing McConnell to thrive in the backup role. Since Christmas, here are a few numbers:

Smith, who worked out with McConnell over the summer with trainer Dustin Gray, is impressed with the rookie.

“He’s very crafty inside when he gets into the paint,” Smith said. “And he’s got a feel for the game, just very smart and intelligent.”

Since 2010, the Neumann-Goretti runaway train hasn’t stopped: The Saints have captured four out of the five available state titles in that span and are favored to do so again this year. They also still haven’t lost in the state final (although their games have tended to be nail-biters), which Arrigale at least partially credits to the initial scare McConnell and Chartiers Valley put into his team.

“I learned a big lesson from that has probably helped us, to never take anything for granted,” Arrigale said. “Not that I took it for granted that day, but I have a feeling we all didn’t think it was going to be that tough.”

As for McConnell, he is only the player on the floor that day who gets to do NBA things like guard Steph Curry. That still doesn’t mean he has moved completely on from missing that final shot, though.

“I’m still not over it, I think about it all the time,” he said.

Follow Rich on Twitter: @rich_hofmann