Xavier McDaniel during his NBA days with the Seattle Supersonics
These days Xavier McDaniel finds himself in an unfamiliar spot in a basketball arena. From the late ’70s to 1998, McDaniel was on the court scoring points and helping his team win games. Now, he is where most parents are, cheering his children from the stands.
From 1978- 1981, McDaniel played high school basketball for head coach Carl Williams and the A.C. Flora Falcons.
“Coach Williams had a big influence on my life, not just basketball but academic wise, too,” McDaniels said. “He stayed on top of me to make sure I didn’t get into trouble, more or less like a father figure.
“In high school, I told people ‘I can score.’ Coach Williams wanted me to be more than just a scorer. He wanted me to be an allaround player. He was the first person to tell me that he thought I had a legitimate chance to play beyond college. I took his advice and kind of settled my ways down a little bit. I went to class and became what he called a ‘model citizen.’ I took a lot of his advice, and it paid off in the end.”
Along with the Hallof Fame coach, McDaniel had teammates like Tyrone Corbin, who helped make A.C. Flora a formidable foe for any opponent.
“Tyrone was a great, great teammate. He was a guy that didn’t ask for the ball a lot. He would do a lot of little things that didn’t always show up in the box score. He was a great competitor. I always enjoyed playing with him in high school.”
Williams would harness all the talent on his team and lead the Falcons to the South Carolina state title in 1981, but while McDaniel was helping A.C.Flora to great success on the court, he was dealing with difficulty off the court. He started looking at colleges, and the one he wanted to attend was the University of South Carolina. However, due to McDaniel’s grades, USC was hesitant to give him a scholarship until he got his grades up.
McDaniel spent the fall semester on his academics, and when he talked with USC officials again, they advised him to start at a prep school to make sure he could handle the academic load. Disappointed, McDaniel sat down with Williams who advised him to take other recruiting trips. McDaniel then visited Ole Miss, Clemson, and Wichita State.
When he visited Wichita State, the Shockers’ style of play immediately appealed to McDaniel.
“I liked the up and down game they liked to run. The coach asked me if I could dribble. I said ‘yes,’ but told him my high school coach didn’t want me to dribble. The Wichita State coach said his system allowed the 3, 4, or 5 (positions other than guard) to bring it up. He put in a tape of 6’9” Antoine Carr bringing the ball up, and I was like ‘whoa!’ He asked me if I liked to dunk, and I said ‘yeah.’ He was showing me all of this, and I felt like it was a great opportunity to go to a school that was on the rise.”
McDaniel decided to join a Wichita State roster that already included Carr, who eventually played 16 years in the NBA and Cliff Levingston, who went on to a have a 13-year professional basketball career.
McDaniel began to develop into a star his sophomore year. He averaged 18.8 points and 14.4 rebounds his sophomore season and followed that up with 20.6 points and 13.1 rebounds per game his junior year. Then his senior season, he became the first player in NCAA history to lead the nation in scoring (27.2 points per game) and rebounding (14.8 rebounds per game).
One game during his senior season is still fresh in McDaniel’s mind. It was the championship game of the Missouri Valley Conference, a rematch of a regular season match-up pitting Wichita State against Tulsa. After the Shockers fell to the Golden Hurricanes, helping Tulsa to secure the regular season championship, McDaniel helped Wichita State extract a measure of revenge by contributing 34 points and 14 rebounds as the Shockers won the tournament championship and a birth in the NCAA tournament. Wichita State would go on to lose to Georgia in the first round of the tournament.
Following the end of the season, McDaniel turned his focus to the NBA draft. He said playing alongside future NBA players and having head coaches who helped him form his game prepared him to take that next step.
“I think just playing against great players brings the best out in you. I think I always had the talent but maybe not always the work ethic. Once I learned how to get the work ethic, I found out that combination could be awesome.”
McDaniel would go on to be the No. 4 pick in the 1985 NBA draft, selected by the Seattle Supersonics.
“I was nervous going into that draft because there was so much hype about other players. I didn’t want to go to Atlanta because I would have been playing with Antoine Carr and Cliff Livingston again, and I didn’t see how the three of us as very similar players could exist on that team.
“When they took me, it was like a whole bunch of weight came off. I just went out and tried to do the best I could.”
McDaniel spent a little over four seasons with the Supersonics helping to guide Seattle to two appearances in the Western Conference Finals in 1987 and 1989 losing to the Los Angeles Lakers each time.
“It was frustrating getting swept by them the two times we faced them. You got that opportunity to go to the finals. It was something that I always dreamed about doing, but you have some guy named Magic Johnson, a phenomenal basketball player who’s 6’9 and runs like a gazelle that was pretty much unstoppable. Then I went to the Eastern Conference, and there was Michael Jordan. It was an honor to go up against those guys, and it’s always been great to compete against them.”
Seattle traded McDaniel to the Phoenix Suns 15 games into the 1990-1991 season. He wound up with the New York Knicks the following season and teamed up with a familiar coach, Pat Riley, who McDaniel faced in Seattle while Riley was coaching the Lakers.
While McDaniel says it took a little time, the two ultimately came to some common ground as to how McDaniel would fit into the system. Following his time with the Knicks, McDaniel would play for the Boston Celtics and the New Jersey nets before retiring after the 1997-1998 season.
Since his playing days, McDaniel has been an assistant coach for his daughter Xylina’s AAU basketball team. He can sum up the experience in one word.
“Tough. I always tell kids when you were younger you were willing to listen a lot more. When kids get older they think they know it all, and I tell them you still have a lot of growing to do in basketball. Teaching kids and giving back was something I always wanted to do.”
Through coaching, McDaniel has been able to pass on his experience and skills to the younger generation, especially Xylina. He says he has taught her the same way he was taught, with one exception. McDaniel taught Xylina to play within a system instead of one-on-one, the style he was accustomed to in the NBA.
In February, Xylina ended a four-year career with the Spring Valley girls’ basketball team. During her career, the Lady Vikings captured two state titles and were a runnerup in a third appearance. Xylina was named a high school All-American and will take her talents to North Carolina this upcoming season to play for the Lady Tarheels. The Lady Vikings were upset by Dorman this last season in the second round of the playoffs.
“It’s very gratifying knowing she went to three straight high school finals. It’s gratifying and it hurts. Like I told her, ‘people will say this and say that, but you can stand up and say I won two state titles and was runner-up in another one. My family is proud of me and my teammates, and just move forward. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s not how you fall down. It’s how you are going to get up.’ That’s what I’ve been trying to teach her.”
Since her final game with Spring Valley, Xylina, with help from her father, prepared for and played in the North Carolina/South Carolina allstar game in Myrtle Beach and the McDonald’s All-American game in Chicago.
Despite being involved with Xylina’s career, McDaniel says he is able to keep track of the A.C. Flora basketball program, but not as much as he would like.
“Everybody plays on the same nights most nights. Sometimes you want to see some other kids play and you’re not able to do that all the time.”
Next Week: Spring Valley’s Peter Boulware
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