The Mac McClung story is a great one - an athletic small-town white kid who gets recruited by a legendary black coach to a predominantly black school. And McClung has the athleticism to go head-to-head against the inner-city kids and more than hold his own. I hope the kid does well in his career there, and Big Patrick is to be congratulated for signing him. He is a prodigious talent.
BUT McClung has started from day one, and Georgetown has little to show for it. Sure, he scores a lot of points, but he takes a lot of shots to do it, and he is not making his teammates better (not many assists), and he turns the ball over too much for his position. To put it proverbally, he is more exciting than he is good.
So far this season he is averaging 8.0 ppg, which is third on the team. But his shooting has been pathetic: 30.8% overall and 18.2% from the arc. He has had only five assists in three games, against six turnovers. Last year McClung averaged 13.1 ppg, but again he shot only 39.2% overall and 27.7% from the arc. And he had 59 turnovers against 58 assists.
Those are numbers that would get most players benched. And Casual Hoya blogger Whipple said after the embarrassing loss to Penn State, "It seems like the only way to fix Mac McClung and James Akinjo is with a dose of their classmate in the starting lineup. It can’t hurt." In other words, sit them on the bench until they learn how to play.
There is a lot of McClung Disease in college basketball these days. Forget fundamentals, as long as what you do looks good. Try to be like the guys on ESPN Sports Center. Don't worry about whether or not your college team wins, as long as you make it to the NBA. I wish I had a vaccine for it.
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