June 4, 2008
It’s a bird, it’s a plane. No it’s McCrary
He can’t leap buildings in a single bound although it sometimes has appeared so. No full-length films or product merchandising have featured him to date, but there’s plenty of video clips presenting his flights of fancy. Plus, opponents have yet to locate any form of kryptonite to slow him down on the court. But no, he isn’t a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes, just Tyree McCrary of Oak Grove High and now he knows where he will call home come next basketball season.
Despite displaying a Division I level skills set and uber-athletic ability, McCrary has been one of those relatively unknown players due to multiple factors. He plays during the high school season in Silicon Valley where basketball pales in public popularity to mall shopping, having high tech gadgets in one’s hands while multi-tasking and staring for hours at a computer screen. The proximity of so many professional and college teams also draws the primary focus of the vast majority of area sports fans. And McCrary was at neither the size or position nor surrounded with a bevy of other college-bound teammates of say fellow San Josean Drew Gordon.
But college coaches certainly knew of and about McCrary who has been followed intently for some time. They will be lining up two years hence at the Diablo Valley College gymnasium where McCrary will be playing under veteran Coach Steve Coccimiglio.
"I wanted to be fairly close to home so my family could see me play but also be at a good school," McCrary said.
It was definitely a family determination, according to McCrary, "My entire family -- my mother, grandmother, brothers -- we all sat down and made the decision."
He has already lined up an apartment in the Pleasant Hill area and will begin informal play soon.
Coccimiglio, both the beneficiary and molder of McCrary’s talent for the next two seasons, had this to say about his newest charge. "We are really excited to have Tyree become part of us. Our program is a great opportunity for him to come to and continue the fine work [Oak Grove Coach] Rich Young has started."
Here’s how Coccimiglio assessed McCrary: "He has a tremendous upside at 6-foot-8 with a great basketball frame. He has outstanding ball skills as he handles the ball well and displays a great stroke."
McCrary is also one of the quickest jumpers in the Bay Area, needing but a nanosecond to gather himself for takeoff. He averaged 16.6 points a game, 11.5 rebound each time out and 3 blocked shots a contest while changing many other opponent shooting attempts. Twice the co-MVP of the Blossom Valley Athletic League, McCrary was a CalHiSport.com 2007 all-state selection and a McDonald’s All-American nominee this season.
He very well could find himself playing at the two guard, the wing and possibly even at power forward in Division 1 but will definitely need to add weight and strength during the next couple of seasons. Marquette, Utah and a number of Western Athletic Conference teams were interested in his services but McCrary was unable to obtain academic qualifier status.
So his consolation prize became Diablo Valley, always one of the top teams in the state, having won five consecutive conference championships and finishing atop the Big Eight Conference three consecutive times. In the recently concluded season, Coccimiglio’s squad went 13-1 in league and 26-8 overall. From that team, Brandon Adams is departing to Hawaii and the previous season saw Mac Peterson head to San Jose State.
Tyree McCrary will certainly aid in continuing that trend.