Getty Matt McQuaid #20 of the Michigan State Spartans celebrates after defeating the Duke Blue Devils in the East Regional game of the 2019 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.
Matt McQuaid entered this season as an excellent option as a 6th man for Michigan State. He figured to rotate in for former 5-star guard Josh Langford, but that plan changed after Langford suffered a season-ending ankle injury just before the start of the new calendar year.
Only a few months later, McQuaid torched rival Michigan for 27 points in the Big Ten Championship Game. Last weekend, he connected on a circus layup against Duke to help advance the Spartans to this weekend’s Final Four in Minneapolis.
The senior captain has come a long way since his high school days in Texas, averaging 9.8 points a game on over 42% shooting from 3-point range. Here’s what you need to know about “Captain Quaido” before he arrived in East Lansing.
Matt McQuaid High School Stats & Accolades
He attended Duncanville High, earning a 4-star ranking per 247 Sports. The site ranked him as the No. 58 player overall in the 2015 class, as well as the No. 14 shooting guard and No. 5 player from the Lone Star State.
ESPN.com’s Jeff Goodman called McQuaid, “arguably the best pure shooter in the country.”
The 6-foot-5, 175-pounder at the time was previously committed to SMU, helmed then by former Detroit Pistons coach Larry Brown. McQuaid also listed scholarship offers from Baylor, Creighton, Indiana, Kansas State, Missouri and Texas, among others.
According to Kyle Austin of MLive, he “finished his high school career by averaging 18 points and nine rebounds per game.” Austin also stated that McQuaid sank 45.1 percent of his 3-pointers in Nike’s Elite Youth Basketball League AAU circuit.
His Duncanville coach Corey Chism warned against perceptions that McQuaid would just be a shooter.
“I thought we did a great job of putting him in position to take guys off the dribble more instead of just letting him be a spot-up shooter in the corner, so we put him in position that he could be more of a scorer.”
As evidenced from the Duke highlight, he’s developed quite a bit in that area. He may not have even earned a look from Izzo without demonstrating his athleticism at the LeBron James Skills Academy the summer before his senior year.
According to Greg Riddle of SportsDay, McQuaid shared the court with James.
“He threw me a lob,” McQuaid said. “I finished the layup.”…
…”Without that camp, I probably wouldn’t be here, without Coach Izzo seeing me,” McQuaid said in a phone interview this week.
Izzo eventually extended an official offer, allowing McQuaid to join 5-star Muskegon power forward Deyonta Davis and 3-star Ohio shooting guard Kyle Ahrens in the 2015 class.
McQuaid led Duncanville to the 6A State Playoffs in 2014-15, only for the Panthers to drop a 51-49 decision to Coppell in the first round.
Various professional basketball players hail from Duncanville, including former Memphis Grizzlies power forward Chris Owens and WNBA stars Tamika Catchings and Tiffany Jackson.
While McQuaid never won a state title with the Panthers, the school won the 6A title this past season.