On at least three separate occasions Wednesday night, Megan McConnell went crashing to the floor and popped up rubbing her elbows. At one point, grabbing a rebound, she was popped in the face and dribbled up the court wincing.
It’s just the price McConnell paid for the Duquesne women’s basketball team in this game, part of a style of play that saw her register a career-high eight steals to go along with seven points, five boards and two assists.
The well-rounded stat line came in a devastating, two-point loss in which the Dukes struggled to make shots and find consistent offense. That was frustrating for everyone involved. It was a game where offense was difficult to find, but it oddly highlighted McConnell’s value to her team.
“That’s the biggest thing you can say. She’s reliable. I know every single time we play in a game, Meg McConnell is going to have a couple of steals, and she’s going to be a great defender on the other team’s best guard,” coach Dan Burt said Wednesday. “... With Meg, you always know she’s going to give you her best effort, and she’s going to defend like crazy, and that’s in her DNA. That’s part of who she is as a McConnell.”
This is the part of McConnell that is impossible to hide from in Pittsburgh. She is the most recent college basketball player from the legendary McConnell basketball family. For those somehow unfamiliar, a trip to McConnell’s player biography on Duquesne’s website hosts a long list of pertinent “personal” bullet points for family members who have accomplished great things on the court, mostly in Western Pennsylvania.
There’s her brother, TJ, a standout player at Duquesne, then Arizona and now a member of the NBA’s Indiana Pacers. He’s in his seventh season in the league. The other McConnell brother, Matty, was a 1,000 point scorer at Robert Morris. Her father, Tim, has won more than 600 games as a coach at Chartiers Valley High School.
Of course, there are also McConnell’s aunts, Suzie McConnell-Serio and Kathy McConnell-Miller. The former was an All-American at Penn State, won an Olympic gold medal, played three seasons in the WNBA and was an All-WNBA First Team selection in 1998. Then she won WNBA Coach of the Year honors with the Minnesota Lynx in 2004. The latter played in four straight NCAA Tournaments with Virginia in the late-80s and has made coaching stops at Tulsa, Colorado, Pitt, Rutgers and Illinois.
The point is that a McConnell playing in Pittsburgh will always carry a level of expectation with them. Megan is no different. When it comes down to it, though, the ethos of the family’s playing careers comes down to certain levels of grit and smarts on the court, and it’s something the second-year Duquesne guard has clearly embraced.
“I definitely think that’s my go-to thing,” McConnell said. “I try to get stops on defense so I can get momentum going on offense for my team, and if I can get steals, I think that gives us the energy on the court and on the bench that we need, so I just try to be that energy for us.”
There are still clear spots for improvement. On Wednesday, for instance, McConnell went 3-for-11 from the floor and 0-for-5 from beyond the arc. As a team, the Dukes struggled to break down George Washignton’s defense and get easy looks, and also struggled to convert the easy looks they did get. McConnell’s continued offensive development could help ease some of those issues.
Harping on offensive shortcomings would be nitpicking, though. McConnell plays point guard in the traditional sense, running the offense, guarding the ball well and bringing energy to her team. She averages 9.0 points, 6.2 rebounds, 4.0 assists and 2.7 steals per game, taking bumps and bruises and doing the little things that coaches value so much.
It’s the type of all-around game that one would expect from a McConnell, but in doing so, she’s paving her own way and beginning to carve out her own chapter of the McConnell legacy in Pittsburgh.
Mike Persak: mpersak@post-gazette.com and Twitter @MikeDPersak
First Published: February 13, 2022, 1:00 p.m.
