From paperboy to small-ball star, why Mike McGuirl was ready to help K-State to win

Mike McGuirl learned how to be tough when he was 14 years old, waking up early on Saturday mornings and trudging through a foot of snow in Ellington, Conn. to deliver newspapers.

He had to, McGuirl explains years later, because his parents made him come up with the money for his phone bill.

"It taught me that nothing was going to come easy in life," McGuirl said. "I had to work hard for everything. I was an underdog as a kid. I'm not supposed to be here. That kind of attitude made me into the person I am today."

Perhaps to an outsider it's surprising that McGuirl, a 6-foot-2 freshman, allowed Kansas State coach Bruce Weber to go prolonged stretches with five guards against the fourth-tallest team in college basketball and prevail, 61-58, over Kentucky in the Sweet 16 on Thursday evening at Philips Arena.

But to McGuirl, who began this season with plans of redshirting before being thrust into the rotation in March, it was hardly a surprise. He felt like his whole life had prepared him for a knock-down, drag-out game like this (with 51 total fouls) against an opponent that had his team outsized and outhyped.

"I've been dreaming that one day that this could happen and it's happening now," McGuirl said after playing 21 minutes in K-State's win. "It really shows you that all of the hard work really does pay off. It's unbelievable to say the least."

Even at full strength, K-State would have been at a disadvantage against a Kentucky team that played six players who were 6-6 or taller. But the reality was that a foot injury limited 6-10 star Dean Wade to 8 minutes (none in the second half) and 30 fouls by K-State led to the two remaining posts, Makol Mawien and Levi Stockard, fouling out.

That meant Xavier Sneed, all 6-5 of him, had to play extended minutes as the team's center. That meant a seldom-used pair of 6-2 guards, McGuirl and Amaad Wainright, had to battle against 6-9-and-taller players from Kentucky.

"Every rebound was a brawl tonight," said Sneed, who grabbed a team-high nine of them.

"It was like a war," Brown said. "It's kind of crazy that we probably played our smallest line-up against the biggest team."

Kentucky ranked No. 8 in the country in offensive rebounding percentage entering the game, as it parlayed its height advantage into grabbing just over 35 percent of its own misses.

With its most distinct size advantage of the season on Thursday, Kentucky was able to retrieve 37.9 percent of possible offensive rebounds — slightly above its average, but a far cry from the 12 times it finished with at least 40 percent.

"We didn't have any mismatch problems," said Kamau Stokes, revealing his team's mind-set. "We may be small, but we're real competitive."

"To me, hype doesn't get you anywhere in basketball. It's all about heart," Wainright said. "Hype can only get you so far. As long as you have heart in basketball, anything is possible."

No player better exemplified K-State's heart than McGuirl, which is exactly why assistant coach Chester Frazier recruited him.

"All of these guys have been underdogs their whole lives," Frazier said. "They've been overlooked, underrecruited. Nobody gave them a chance. They play hard for us and they believe in each other. Mike is finally getting his chance and showing the world he can defend at a high level."

McGuirl's heart allowed him to defend and rebound bigger than his height, something all of K-State's guards did to pull off a victory playing five guards. When Weber downsized, KSU was able to switch every screen and prevent Kentucky from using its leverage inside.

K-State's defense held Kentucky to a 41.7 percent effective field goal percentage, Kentucky's third-lowest mark of the season, and 0.91 points per possession, Kentucky's fifth-lowest output of the season.

In the game's final minute, McGuirl was there on defense both times defending the three-point line as K-State's defense produced the game-winning defensive stands.

As McGuirl knows, nothing comes easy. You have to work for it.

"Because of our heart, we're moving on," McGuirl said. "It didn't matter how tall they were, how athletic they were, we were just going to go out there and compete because we know they lace up their shoes the same way we do."

This story was originally published March 23, 2018 at 2:13 AM with the headline "From paperboy to small-ball star, why Mike McGuirl was ready to help K-State to win."