City of Basketball Love

Daniel Hughes (@hooplove215)
--

Two years is a long time.

And if Carnell McGirt’s next two years are anything like his last, then the future looks very bright indeed for the Philadelphia native and Roman Catholic grad.

The Valley Forge Military College product will be aiming his basketball trajectory towards Bloomsburg, Pa, where he will play for head coach John Sanow and the Bloomsburg University Huskies after committing to continue his academic and athletic career there on April 11.

“Bloomsburg, when I visited, it just felt like the perfect fit,” McGirt said. “Just the environment, the coaching staff, being around people that went there, it just seemed like I would be able to fit in.”

The last place where McGirt fit in, he became one of the best players in program history.

That was Valley Forge, a relatively new program on the junior college scene, led by head coach Rich Casey. The former Manor College head coach, who took over Valley Forge three years ago as it was transitioning into the NJCAA’s Division II, saw something in the 6-foot-7 forward from Roman Catholic.

At Roman, McGirt was never counted on to do much scoring, contributing a total of 138 points between his junior and senior seasons, spending most of that time as a backup big man. He didn’t even know if his basketball career would continue much longer if at all after graduation, as he was dealing with a knee injury--Valley Forge ended up being the only school to recruit him.

“I just felt blessed,” McGirt said. “Coming out of high school, I wasn’t even expected to even continue to play basketball...I expected to come into Valley Forge just being a role player.”

The coaching staff, however, thought otherwise.

“We knew he was very athletic, we knew that he was very coachable,” Casey said. “Let’s just say that we thought he was better than a Division III prospect just by athleticism alone.”

Early on, Casey wanted McGirt to become a leader on the team.

The feeling was mutual.

“My freshman year, it seemed as if somebody needed to step up,” McGirt said, “Coach Casey, he looked at me, and I just took on that responsibility, and I just did what I had to do from there.”

McGirt needed a few games warm up and find his shot. Of his first seven games in college, he was mostly quiet, except for an 18-point performance at Cumberland County and a 20-point game against Morris.

It was in game No. 8, against Raritan Valley, that McGirt let everyone know he had arrived.

“He caught a ball at the top of the key, took one step, came in and dunked on both teams,” Casey said. “We all looked at each other and we were like ‘whoa.’ That’s when we knew he had something special inside of him.”

From then on, McGirt’s numbers improved considerably. He scored at least 15 points in all but three games after that one, averaging 20.4 points per game over the rest of his freshman season.

Scoring is only one of McGirt’s many talents, however. He also averaged 13.4 rebounds and 4.2 blocks in the remaining 17 games of the season; his final numbers as a freshmen were 17.9 ppg, 12.3 rpg and 3.8 bpg.

“I had to fine-tune my game to become more of an all-around threat,” McGirt said. “I tried to do that, and for the most part I think it came out well.”

At Valley Forge, McGirt transformed his game through his outstanding work ethic.

“He worked out at six in the morning with our assistant coaches, after school, in the weight room,” Casey said. “He really got out of Valley Forge what Valley Forge is about, let’s put it that way.”

McGirt stayed hot for the first half of his sophomore year, putting in monster performances leading up to a 30-point explosion against Montgomery County. He cooled off somewhat afterwards, but finished strong in his Valley Forge finale against Saint Joseph’s junior varsity squad with 29 points.

After finishing his career with 908 points, 540 rebounds and 170 blocks, becoming the all-time leader in those three categories at Valley Forge, McGirt was named a third-team JUCO Division II All-American and earned first-team all-conference honors as well.

“Valley Forge was the only school that was recruiting me (out of high school),” he said. “So I went there and we did great things.”

This time around, McGirt’s services were in much higher demand.

Niagara, Longwood, and a host of Division II schools all vied for his services until he finally decided on Bloomsburg.

For McGirt, however, Bloomsburg offered more than just a chance to shine on the basketball court.

“The academics were great,” McGirt said. “Aside from the basketball part of it, I was gonna spend my next two years at Bloomsburg, so socially it also fit.”

McGirt will join a frontcourt next year that already includes redshirt juniors Kyle-Michael Rose, Jameal Tucker and Christian Mortellite, as well as senior Malik Sneed and junior Darius Robinson-Wallace.

Another forward, 6-foot-7 Upper Darby product Maurice Grier, has also committed for this fall’s class.

The versatile McGirt can be used both at the top of the key or down in the post for the Huskies, depending on how the defense matches up. He is working to improve in both areas.

“I would definitely like to expand my jump-shot,” McGirt said. “That and I want to get stronger and I want to improve my ball-handling skills...they want to utilize me in different ways.”

It certainly seems like McGirt's junior and senior years of college will be rather different than those in his high school career.

He’s got two years to prove it.

"He’s a kid that I can honestly say out of all my years at Manor and now at Valley Forge that got it for the right reasons,” Casey said. “He wanted a good education, he wanted a place where he would fit academically and socially and that’s what he found.”