McGee talks, plays a good game for UNM
Sophomore ready to take charge at point guard in first year with Lobos
You wouldn’t know it by watching him play.
Keith McGee, the University of New Mexico sophomore point guard, looks like he enjoys talking a little trash, playing like he owns the court and carrying himself with a swagger some would say borders on cocky.
But the junior college transfer from Rochester, N.Y., didn’t always have the confidence he now shows with the Lobos as Tuesday’s season opener at Cal State Northridge approaches.
Nor did he have it when he first arrived at South Plains (Junior) College in Levelland, Texas.
Or even when he first started hitting the outdoor courts while growing up in New York.
“I’m confident now that I can run the point,” McGee said during a podcast interview earlier this week in which he, on three occasions, mentioned initial trepidations in basketball.
Now, McGee exudes confidence. That’s a big part of his
game, as he can be seen, and heard, talking throughout a game with teammates and opponents.
“Growing up, it used to bother me (to talk trash when playing basketball),” McGee said. “… But when I started doing it — when I started talking, I started to back it up more.”
His game grew in New York, and as a 15-year-old sophomore, McGee went overseas for seven months to Qatar, where his dad, Chauncey Lesley, played professional basketball.
It was an experience that McGee looks back on fondly — waking up each morning to go to the gym and watch the game played at a level he hadn’t seen up close and personally before.
Back in New York, his game as a shooting guard and small forward grew the final two years of high school and with his EYBL club team, City Rocks. But he wasn’t getting heavily recruited to play in college.
He went to a junior college in Iowa, but didn’t play his first year. He then when to South Plains College and started the season there as a reserve point guard.
“I had to get in the gym,” McGee said. “I had to become more confident. At first, I started off kind of nervous. This was my first college basketball, so I was kind of nervous. But over time, I adjusted pretty quickly.”
It wasn’t long before he was a starter and began turning heads of Division I coaches, including the UNM staff that was recruiting one of McGee’s teammates.
“Brandon (Mason, UNM assistant) came back from a workout last fall saying he really liked Keith,” Lobos head coach Paul Weir said. “We followed him during the year, but he never really hit the court enough to see it. Later in the year they made some roster changes, he got a great opportunity to play, and obviously made more than the most of it. He was incredible.”
McGee carried South Plains to the NJCAA national title and was named the event’s MVP.
By then the Lobos weren’t the only team aware of his point guard skills.
“I was so excited at first,” McGee recalls of Division I coaches starting to recruit him so intensely. “What I did was just calm down and I called my grandfather.”
Alvin McGee, Keith’s grandfather, is a “huge influence on my life,” the Lobo sophomore said. “My best friend, honestly.”
The Lobos recruited not only McGee, his mother and his father, but also kept his grandfather very much included in the process.
When all were convinced, and McGee chose to be a Lobo, he looked up one of his UNM teammates — JaQuan Lyle, a point guard at Ohio State before transferring to UNM. Lyle and the UNM staff had hoped to move away from the point guard spot, but only if McGee worked out at the position.
“When I first found out who he was and I looked him up, I was like, ‘There is no way I’m going to be able play over this guy,’” McGee said. “I was nervous. I’m not going to lie.”
Then he and Lyle bonded, and McGee’s confidence grew as he began to see how the two could play on the court together.
Then came the season-ending Achilles tear suffered by Lyle in early October.
“When it happened, that’s when I really realized that I have to step up,’ McGee said. “Because if he was playing this year, I believe a lot of big plays would have gone through him.
“But now (with) him being out, I believe that there’s a chance for me to step up and try to make the big plays now.”
Tuesday
8 p.m., 610 AM/94.5 FM, BigWest.TV (online)
Episode 18 of the Talking Grammer podcast, a conversation with Lobo point guard Keith McGee, can be found on iTunes or on AbqJournal.com/ sports