1. The McLean “situation”: Throughout the course of the game, but primarily in the second half, I glanced towards the UTC defensive side of the court and could see Tre’ McLean talking to the Citadel bench, usually very animated. Having seen McLean a lot this season, I just assumed it was because it was emotional game for the West Ashley, S.C. product. Then I noticed going into a timeout that the talk was directed towards Citadel associate head coach Daniel Willis, who I watched saying “something” to him. After the game, while the teams were shaking hands, the two said something else to each other and basically had to be restrained. Basically Willis said during the game that McLean wasn’t “tough enough” to play, and in a postgame interview, head coach Duggar Baucom reiterated that thought.
“You don’t want me to say anything about him,” Baucom said. “The way he acted after the game, he’s classless.
“All I know is that he’s not tough enough to go to Citadel.”
I spoke with McLean after and heard his side of the situation. Truth is, it doesn’t matter. I’m not sure when coaches trash-talking players became the norm, but I was definitely confused when I saw it happen that day. Tre’ isn’t without fault in this situation. He’s by far the most emotional player on the team and sometimes has to be reeled in due to those emotions, and he’s going to have to watch that because some opponents will be able to use that against him, possibly by working him into getting a senseless technical foul.
But being a tough basketball player doesn’t make you a good one. Whether he’s tough enough or not to play at The Citadel has no bearing on a kid that ranks second in scoring, rebounding, assists, blocks and steals for a 12-2 team with a NCAA tournament-quality non-conference resume.