The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

He didn’t get to do it as a player, but now Mikhail McLean will get to experience what it’s like to be in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Men’s Division One Basketball Final Four.

The 6-foot, 6-inch former Cougars forward is the assistant director of player development for Houston who advanced to the NCAA March Madness semifinals for the first time since 1984.

The Cougars knocked off the Oregon State Beavers 67-61 on Monday in the Elite Eight at the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Now Houston prepares to face the No.1 seed Baylor Bears, who reached the Final Four with their 81-72 thrashing of the Arkansas Razorbacks.

It’s the first time two Texas teams have made the semifinals.

“It’s so surreal. Our team and our coaching staff worked so relentlessly for the past four years and we’re just reaping the benefits of what we sowed,” McLean said.

“We were so close three years ago when we lost to Michigan in a buzzer-beater and the next year, we lost to Kentucky by three or four points. We were so close for so long and now we’re having our time. We have finally been rewarded.”

McLean is one of few Bahamians who have advanced to the Final Four, but he noted that it would be an even greater accomplishment if they can advance to the final.

“Everything I do since I was a player was to bring respect to the country, the Bahamas,” he said. “I’ve been doing this so long and I want to thank my parents, my mother, who invested so much for me to get out here and get a better life.

“I just want to make my mom proud in heaven, my dad proud and everyone else.”

On January 20, McLean’s mother Olivia passed away and he so he decided to dedicate whatever the Cougars to her memory. His father, Leroy, is still alive.

Since advancing, the Cougars had a chance to celebrate their feat, but McLean said they are ight back at it because of the hefty task of taking on Baylor this weekend.

“We’re living in the moment, but we’re right back at work,” he said. “I’m getting ready to scout them and put together a game plan.

“Just like that, we celebrate, but we have to get right back at it because we play them on Saturday, so it’s a quick turn around for us.”

As the Player Development, McLean is responsible for the video breakdown of their games and their scouting report. He also work with the players on their academic skills off the court.

“I just do whatever coach Kelvin Sampson and his staff ask me to do,” he said. “I just try to fill that void.”

In Baylor, McLean said they have a lot of respect for them because they a force to reckon with.

“They shoot the ball very well. They have three guys, who could possibly play in the NBA (National Basketball Association) next year, so this is going to be a big defensive and rebounding game,” he projected.

“If we can find a way to do those things, we stand a chance to win it.”

He noted that one of their assistant coaches’ son is on Baylor’s staff, which adds to the showdown.

“The assistant coach on our staff, Alvin Brooks, he recruited me to Houston,” McLean said. “Now ten years later, we are together on the same team in the Final Four.”

McLean just encouraged Bahamians to continue to “put God first” and to work on your craft. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn’t, but he admonished them to trust God to work it out for them.

During his tenure as a player with the Cougars from 2010 to 2015, thanks to his involvement with the Frank Rutherford Foundation, McLean became the epitome of the term student-athlete.

On the court, he competed in 101 games during his collegiate career with 34 starts. He scored a career-high 14 points against crosstown-rival Rice as a senior and grabbed 10 rebounds at TCU in 2012 before being sidelined with a foot injury.

In the classroom, he was as four-time member of the conference Commissioner’s Honor Roll/All-Academic Team during his career and received the Conference USA Winter Spirit of Service Award in 2013.

McLean, 29, received his bachelor’s degree in health promotions in three years from the University of Houston in 2013. He followed that with his master’s degree in health education from UH in 2015.

A proud product of Chippingham, McLean attended St John’s College where he excelled in every sport, except basketball. He, however, expressed his gratitude to CI Gibson’s coach Kevin ‘KJ’ Johnson and Bahamas Basketball Federation president Mario Bowleg for assisting him before he joined Frank Rutherford in Houston.

McLean and his wife, Arrion, have a son, M.J. and Amari Jude.