[jmdickens]

lureal, you obviously don't know anything about basketball...Our team that won the bs in 2003(oh you were still in middle school or something) had alot less talent than this years team. I guess wanting to win means knowing nothing about the game.....Remember lureal, you know nothing significant about me...and you never will.

[BJWilliams]

Actually JM it was 2004 when we won the big south. I will grant the talent wasn't exactly all world but we definitely had the right guys in there at the right time with the right chemistry. The pinnacle of that was the High Point game on ESPN2. I watched the video of that game and it was like we could do no wrong that day. Recruiting is pretty much a crapshoot. A kid could be all-state in high school, possibly even a high school All-American, but they may be a total bust once they get to college. Course you could have a kid that walked onto the team, turn around and have the best 4 years of his life and be a constant contributor. Now of course Alex isn't a freshman but that sort of thing could be said about transfers too. Im not an LU homer (even though I am a student like JM...and as a sidebar to JM, congratulations on your engagement and good luck in your final semester at LU), I call it like I see it. If I like what I see, I'll say so. If what I see sucks...I'll DEFINITELY say so

[jmdickens]

BJ I was referring 2003-2004 season...Why are people talking about Doug Stewart like he is some player that goes around and talks bad about coach dunton.......

[BJWilliams]

I personally do not think that way. I see Doug more as a guy who didn't quite pan out...you get your share of those in sports at the college and pro level. I don't know anything that goes on behind the scenes, and I won't act or claim like I do.

[TDDance234]

I think people see a guy like Doug Stewert and come away dissapointed at what he could have been. Everyone was raving that he was the best player in practice, etc. and he just stunk up the joint when it came time to produce. Coach Dunton did we had to do and remove him from the team to make room for a player that might give them some more help.

I think that's all it was and that's all it should be.

[pbow]

well if Coach D wanted to remove players to make the team better, I know that there is at least one person on the bench that is at least 20 times worse than doug

[jmdickens]

easy pbow(we know who you are going to mention)....I never said Doug was even that good......He didn't pan out, nor was he playing his position. I never heard him being the best player in practice....

[jmdickens]

Why are we even talking about Doug??

[Sly Fox]

I'm with you, jmdickens. Let's let Doug finish school.

[TylerBakersGonnaBGreat]

Doug Quit, he didnt get kicked off

[Chris Lang]

Let's just hope it makes it to our web site.

[PAmedic]

http://newsadvance.com/servlet/Satellit ... th=!sports

McLean goes from longshot to LU's big man

By Chris Lang
Lynchburg News & Advance
December 13, 2006



Liberty forward Alex McLean was 6-foot-2 and "a lot fatter than I am now" when he was a high school senior.
He hardly touched a basketball in high school. He had no reason to. Pudgy 6-2 kids didn't play varsity basketball. They found other outlets. In McLean's case, it was music; he played bass, piano and drums in Bay Shore (N.Y.) High School's band.

Only when he sprouted six inches during his first year at Suffolk Community College did basketball become part of McLean's life. SCC coaches liked McLean's size and athletic ability (the growth spurt only added height, not girth) and encouraged him to try out for the school team.

He averaged 8.0 points and 8.1 rebounds a game as a freshman and began to wonder if playing Division I basketball was a dream worth pursuing.

"I started talking with the coach during the summer and worked out with him a little bit," McLean said. "I started to grow a little bit."

After a sophomore year in which he earned NJCAA all-Region XV honors for averaging 18.1 points and 13.9 rebounds per game, McLean earned a scholarship to Southeast Missouri State. And what seemed like an unlikely turn of events for someone who didn't play a minute of prep basketball had become reality.

Then McLean's dream was crushed. Two weeks before he was set to start classes at the school's Cape Girardeau campus, SE Missouri's coaches called McLean.

Sorry. We don't have a scholarship for you any more. We needed to give it to someone else.

"They jerked me around," McLean said with a slight tinge of anger.

Despondent, McLean went back to Suffolk, took classes and tried to stay in basketball shape. Liberty assistant coach Alexis Sherard knew someone on the SEMO coaching staff, who told Sherard that McLean was a pretty good player, but they had no place for him.

So Liberty started going after him "hard and heavy," Flames coach Randy Dunton said. Only McLean was a little wary of pulling the trigger so soon after the SEMO fiasco.

McLean went through his first semester of classes at Suffolk before accepting Dunton's scholarship offer. Once he transferred to LU in January, Dunton breathed a little sigh of relief.

His team was stumbling through a 7-23 season and was in desperate need of post help. McLean was seen as a quick fix for the 2006-07 season. It seemed like a lot of pressure to put on a forward who had played all of two years of competitive basketball, but McLean was up to the challenge.

Entering the week, he was sixth in the Big South in scoring (16.7 ppg) and fourth in rebounding (8.9 rpg). He's commanding double teams on the block, which leaves other offensive options open. He passes well out of double teams and runs the floor well for a player his size.

Plus, he's still fairly raw, so it's safe to assume McLean is only going to get better with experience.

"He's learning all the little nuances of the game, especially at this level," said Liberty assistant Zack Jones, who coaches the Flames' post players. "What we're seeing now is just the developing stages of what he can become."

What he's becoming, very quickly, is a solid Division I basketball player. McLean briefly thought about his chances of playing college basketball at any level when he was in high school, but quickly dismissed them.

"I thought, maybe, Division III, at the most," he said.

Three years later, he stepped onto the floor at Oklahoma's Lloyd Noble Center for Liberty's season opener against the Sooners. He had arrived. McLean and Liberty can only hope that night was just a start.

"It was like a dream come true," McLean said. "To some guys, it might be normal, they're used to it. But I had been waiting on this my whole life. I thought it would never happen."

[PAmedic]

great window into part of this kid's life.

nicely done, as always, CHRIS.

thanks

[jcmanson]

Wow. I didn't know all of that. Very impressive. Too bad he doesn't have 4 years of eligibility or we would have ALOT to look forward to, but regardless he still is a great player and has huge-upside.

[mrich]

If he transfered in January from a CC, why couldn't he play last year?

[PAmedic]

I took that as he tx in here Jan of 06 (this year), making Fall of 06 his first season . Maybe I'm wrong.

[mrich]

If he transfered in Jan 06, couldn't he have played spring semester?

[jcmanson]

Yes, he could have, but coach wanted to hold him out until this year. He sat behind the bench alongside of Brew at the end of the year last year.

[mrich]

Not that it would have mattered a whole lot, but it would have been nice to have somone else besided Monroe in the post spring semester

[jcmanson]

I'm glad he held him out because I would rather have him all this year and next than half of last.

[TDDance234]

We were going nowhere last year. Saving a semester of elgibility was smart. A core of Bannister, Brew, Smith and McLean for next semester is pretty darn good.

[jcmanson]

We were going nowhere last year. Saving a semester of elgibility was smart. A core of Bannister, Brew, Smith and McLean for next semester is pretty darn good.

I'm taking it that you meant next year not semester.

[TDDance234]

I did.. thanks for the correction!

[mrich]

So you are saying that if he played last semester, he would only be able to play one semester next year?

[TIMSCAR20]

No. If he played last semester he would be a SR now. He wouldn't have any eligibility next season. Last year would have been his Jr year and this year would have been his Sr. year. Smart move not to play him.