Native McMillian Chance of Vallejo leaves everything on the ground in the final match

San Francisco – There was no guarantee that Texas Tech would have a senior luck McMillian available for the Elite Eight match on Saturday against Florida.

The 6 -foot 3 -inch goalkeeper had been faced with an oblique injury for two weeks which prevented him from the last four games of the team and the three competitions of the NCAA Tournament of Texas Tech.

Texas Tech coach Grant McCasland did not expect McMillian to play, especially after being a late scratch for the Red Red Raiders match against Arkansas.

But from the moment he woke up on Saturday morning, McMillian knew he was going to adapt whatever happens. This year being his last and a chance to go to the Final Four on the line, there was no way to watch again from the bench.

This is not the fabric in which the native of Vallejo is cut.

“I was taking my injury day by day and I knew there were a lot of risks that accompanied him if I played,” McMillian told Bay Area News Group. “But then I woke up and I said:” I’m just going to do it “. I love my teammates and I knew it could have been my last game.

Despite his team below the Final Four, McMillian left everything on the ground. He scored 14 points out of 5 out of 11 shots on the field and played a little less than 26 minutes during the defeat of 84-79 from Texas Tech against Florida at the Chase Center on Saturday evening.

McMillian’s next steps to his future are unknown, but he will never forget how Vallejo made him the player he is.

“It’s a full circle moment,” said McMillian. “I remember being at Vallejo Park, imagining myself to shoot a buzzer drummer as if I’m in Oracle Arena. But now that I’m at the Chase Center now, so it’s just crazy.

“I haven’t classified to come at all. I played in a small AAU team called Lakeshow. I did not play in a team of circuits or something like that until my last year of AAU. I just wanted to give people in the hope of the bay region, especially Vallejo. Not too many vallejo hoops and I played at university, so I really wanted to put the city. ”

While he was in Texas Tech for only two seasons, his final performance as a collegial art will always be remembered by McCasland.

“What McMillian has done today has nothing to do with the score,” said McCasland. “It has everything to do with what I want to live my life. He is obviously in a situation where he would probably not have been able to return. … Dude, I am so inspired by him, and because of him, I believe that our program is different forever. “

When McMillian entered the ground for heating, a strong acclamation emerged behind the Texas Tech bench while looking at the crowd. The Texas Tech section was filled with family members and McMillian fans with his face on their t-shirts.

McMillian did not start the game, but had a huge impact early.

He suffered five minutes in the first half and saw his first rider fail. But it doesn’t take much to advance McMillian.

The lesser goalkeeper sank into the track and overthrow a float on the tense arms of Florida 6-9 striker, Thomas Haugh, a few minutes later. On the following possession, he found Darrion Williams for a 3 -point pointer who introduced his journey to the basket.

From there, everything thought that McMillian looked rusty on his return came out of the window. He made two of his five attempts of 3 points and was the marker Texas Tech needed in the match on Saturday.

When he saw McMillian take the ground, Florida coach Todd Golden was not delighted. The former coach of the University of San Francisco recruited McMillian when he was in high school and knew that he had to plan the game for him in the days preceding the match on Saturday.

“We were disappointed when they said he was playing,” said Golden joking. “We knew that it was going to be difficult to keep. He is a big shooter, a big scorer and gives Texas Tech more depth. But he always had an excellent match.”

For McMillian, it is normal that his heritage as an university basketball player ends in the bay region.

McMillian grew up in San Francisco, attending the star of the Sea Elementary School and St. Thomas the apostle for the college. When he moved to Vallejo, he spent his first three years in St. Patrick-St. St. Vincent High before transferring to Bethel for her last year.