PISCATAWAY, N.J.- Caleb McConnell wins wherever he goes.
The former Scarlet Knight men’s basketball star who spent five seasons in Piscataway won the NBA G-League Championship on Monday night as a member of the Oklahoma City Blue.
The title was OKC’s first NBA G-League championship in team history.
McConnell’s squad defeated the Maine Celtics in the final two games of a best-of-three-game series to win the NBA G-League’s crown. The Blue defeated the Celtics 117-100 at the Portland Expo Building to secure the title on Monday.
McConnell played two minutes in the victory, snagging an offensive rebound, and mainstay contributor and starter on the team all season long. McConnell averaged 6.3 points per game, 5.4 rebounds, 2.2 assists, and 1.2 steals in his first season of professional basketball for Oklahoma City. McConnell continued to buy into the role he played in college at Rutgers as a lockdown defender and winning role player at the professional level all season long.
OKC Blue head coach Kameron Woods praised McConnell’s contagious winning energy all season long when talking with Ryan Stiles of the OKC Blue’s Fansided website last month.
“He really does not have an ego,” Woods said. “I think being a three-and-D guy, a defender with a limited role on offense, it is a hard role to get into. You do not have a chance if you have an ego.”
The former two-time Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year and Lefty Driesell National Defensive Player of the Year played in 32 games and had 11 starts for the Oklahoma City Blue.
McConnell averaged just under 20 minutes a game and was a key role player leading the Blue to a 21-13 record during the regular season. McConnell went undrafted in the preseason and fulfilled an exhibit-10 contract with the Oklahoma City Thunder’s G-League squad this season.
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