Cooney: 76ers' McConnell has always been driven to succeed

THE 2006 SOCCER season at Chartiers Valley High School, about 10 miles southwest of Pittsburgh, wasn't a good one for Tim McConnell. The head coach of the highly successful basketball team since 1993, McConnell saw his starting point guard for that coming season tear an ACL during a soccer game. A season of high hopes and promise got a little murkier with the injury and he, somewhat reluctantly, had to get through the season relying heavily on a scrawny, 5-4, 104-pound freshman who shared the same first and last names but went by T.J.

"He was going to be a guy that I could bring off the bench to hit some shots and give us a bit of a boost," the elder McConnell said of his son, now the 76ers' starting point guard. "And for the first part of the season, he was that. But then he just started playing so well that I needed to get him in the starting lineup. By the middle of the season, he was our starter."

It was about that time when an email to the coach from a local fan sort of formed the mentality of the younger McConnell.

"I got an email basically saying that if I insisted on playing my son, I was going to ruin T.J.'s career by playing him at such a young age and that he simply wasn't ready to be on the floor," the coach recalled.

Perhaps that was the first bit of doubt that was laid upon T.J. McConnell, but he handled it unlike most 14-year-olds. Doubters and critics only fuel the ever-burning fire that rages inside McConnell when it comes to basketball. Tell him he can't do something and he'll accomplish it in a fashion no one ever could imagine. He balances so well a personality of unbridled cockiness and self-doubt, the first because he has been able to meet every unimaginable challenge he has self-imposed, the other because he will never allow himself to be satisfied with where he is in his career.

Where he is right now, as the starting point guard of a Sixers team in the middle of a major overhaul, still has some scratching their heads. That he recently finished a 15-game stretch, just before this current four-game losing streak, leading the team to a 10-5 record while averaging 8.7 points, 9.2 assists while committing only 33 turnovers has changed the talk surrounding him from "if he belongs" to "how he belongs."

"When you first saw him in the league, it was so easy to question why he was in the league. But then you watched and watched and now it's really easy to see why he is," said one NBA scout.

From an early age, McConnell has always wanted to test himself on the basketball court. Eventually given the starting spot as a freshman in high school by his father, he soon told his dad he wanted to play Division I basketball. He finished that year so well that Duquesne coach Ron Everhart offered McConnell a scholarship before his sophomore season. With that in hand, McConnell set his sights on winning the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League before his career as a Colt ended. He did that his senior season, before falling short in the PIAA Class AAA championship game against Neumann-Goretti by 65-63. McConnell missed a three at the buzzer for the win but finished the day with 32 points and 12 rebounds for underdog Chartiers Valley. He ended his career at CV with 2,406 points. His senior year, when he shot up to 6-1, 170 pounds, McConnell averaged 34.2 points, 9.1 assists, 8.2 rebounds and 6.8 steals.

He had two very successful seasons at Duquesne, but when he and his father went to see an Elite Eight game in Pittsburgh that featured Ohio State and Gonzaga, a new challenge entered into his stubborn mind.

"I want to play at a higher level," he told his dad. "I want to go to a school where I can compete for a national championship."

"T.J. has always set goals," said Tim McConnell. "When he said he wanted to be a Division I player, I asked if he knew how good he had to be. He worked and worked and worked. When we visited coach Everhart after they recruited T.J., he showed us an email that asked, 'Why are you recruiting water boys?'

"At Duquesne, he had some success. But then came that tournament game in Pittsburgh. I told him, 'We'll talk about this later,' thinking the thought would just pass over. But it didn't. He loved Duquesne, but he loved the idea of challenging himself even more. So the recruiting process started all over again (once he got his release from Duquesne).

"He wound up picking Arizona over Virginia. (Arizona coach) Sean Miller is someone we have a relationship with and when Duquesne played Arizona when T.J. was still there, he said T.J. was the best player on the court. I wondered how it would all work out. Arizona was a great program. Was T.J. going somewhere where he was going to sit the bench? But the year off he had to take because of transferring really helped him out. He got stronger and faster and wound up having two great seasons there."

Elite Eight appearances both seasons, with a combined 67-9 record at Arizona, McConnell finished his college career being named to the all-defensive first team in the Pac-12 both seasons and first-team all-Pac-12 his senior year. His was a team sprinkled with future NBA players, but McConnell's basketball future looked rocky, at best. Overseas was always an option to explore, but wasn't a big enough challenge for McConnell. He proved his toughness for the Sixers in summer-league play, earned an invite to training camp and now is a starter and moving up the ranking of the league's starting point guards.

"I never want to be satisfied with where I am when it comes to basketball," said McConnell, who has played in 131 of a possible 133 games with the Sixers. "I think, for me, there are always so many areas where I can get better, and that's what drives me every day. I know some people may not think I belong in this league and, at first, I just wanted to stick. Then I wanted to play more. Then I wanted to really contribute. I will never be satisfied where I am. I know that every day I have to bring it in order to prove my existence here. And I'll do that. Just because the team and, to a much lesser extent, I have had some success lately doesn't mean anything has changed. We all have to get better every day. I have to outwork everyone in the gym every day. I have to prove myself every day. And that's all fine with me. I love the challenge."

"He is Marine-tough. I love him," said coach Brett Brown. "He is Philadelphia-tough, through and through, even though he's from Pittsburgh. There will never be a time when someone will say that T.J. can't do something and he'll believe it. Go tell him there's something he can't do and go watch him. He'll do it. He's been doing it all his basketball life. He was brought here because we had a shortage of point guards. Now, we need him. He has done a terrific job of setting our pace, being a part of the better ball movement we've seen, and he's helped us get closer to where we want to be as a team and the style that we believe we need to play moving forward."

Tim McConnell and his wife, Shelly, can't get to many Sixers games as he is busy in his 24th season at Chartiers Valley, where he's won more than 500 games. There have been a few, most recently against the Houston Rockets. While most of the traveling party went to explore the Friday-night happenings of the city after the game, T.J. went to the hotel where his parents were staying, so he could catch up.

"He is a humble person, and if he ever wasn't, his mom would knock him back down to that level," the elder McConnell said. "It is amazing to be home and see all the people in the mall wearing his jersey, or saying hi to us because we're his parents.

"The other day, a third-grader who comes to all our games, his name is Charlie, told me that he went to the barber and asked for the T.J. haircut. Can you imagine that? So we got him a jersey and got T.J. to sign it."

While the father and son see the way the game should be played the same way - with high energy, tremendous hustle and a toughness that never softens, they do disagree on one thing.

On Jan. 11, T.J. McConnell hit a baseline, turnaround 12-footer against the New York Knicks at the buzzer for a 98-97 win. It came at a time when the Sixers were starting to play their best basketball in four years. The next day, I asked McConnell, if he had his choice, would he have rather hit the three against Neumann-Goretti for the state championship or that shot against the Knicks.

"Are you kidding me? This is the NBA," he said. "I will take that shot against the Knicks any day."

"Nah," said Tim McConnell. "I would rather have had that one against Goretti. That would have been our only state title and been legendary. His shot against the Knicks was just one of many NBA games he'll play. Winning a state championship is once in a lifetime."

Just like his son's journey to the NBA.

cooneyb@phillynews.com

@BobCooney76

Blog: philly.com/Sixersblog