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Duke’s Jared McCain grew up and blew up before his NCAA tournament star turn
Before helping the Blue Devils to the Sweet 16, the freshman guard became a social media sensation
On paper it represented a highly anticipated matchup between two of the nation’s best high school teams, Camden vs. Centennial, on Day 3 of the 2023 Hoophall Classic.
From the chatter overheard by Centennial High School coach Josh Giles, the game would feature a master class from the nation’s top-ranked player: Camden’s guard D.J. Wagner of New Jersey. It would be a class where Giles’ guy, Centennial guard Jared McClain, would be thoroughly schooled.
“Everybody was like, D.J.’s so much better, that’s all we heard all game,” Giles recalled. “Everybody’s looking at Jared. He’s always smiling and dancing and singing on TikTok. They’re saying he’s soft and he won’t have a chance.”
Wagner’s line that day: 26 points, 6 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals.
McCain’s line: 26 points, 6 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals.
“We won, and Jared played the No. 1 ranked player in the nation to a statistical standstill,” Giles said this week. “And that is what sets him apart. At the end of the day he’s usually going to find a way to win.”
McCain will put that knack for winning on display Friday when Duke, the No. 4 seed in the NCAA men’s tournament South Regional, faces No. 1 seed Houston. Houston brings the nation’s best defense into the highly anticipated Sweet 16 matchup in Dallas. McCain brings a hot-shooting hand that delivered 30 points and a Duke NCAA tournament record eight 3-pointers to lead Duke’s well-balanced attack in Sunday’s second-round win over James Madison.
It was an impressive NCAA tournament weekend debut for McCain that brought Duke coach Jon Scheyer to a level of appreciation that Giles had coaching McCain over four high school seasons.
“Jared, he’s built differently,” Scheyer said in the midst of McCain’s NCAA tournament debut in Brooklyn, New York. “He’s made for these moments.”
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McCain’s freshman season at Duke was a tremendous success. He’s averaged 14 points and 5.0 rebounds, and was named to the ACC All-Rookie team on March 11.
But McCain’s popularity, in many ways, is bigger than basketball.
His combination of talent, sense of fashion and good looks has caught the eye of media personality Kim Kardashian, who has included McCain among the college athletes signed to her line of men’s clothing.
His penchant for singing led to comedian and actor Ken Jeong (a Duke alum) highlighting his talents this week on Twitter.
And his popularity on TikTok (2.5 million followers and more than 128 million likes) has led to his new status as a hitmaker. The song he featured in a series of videos (including the video Jeong retweeted) helped an obscure Irish singer/songwriter go viral.
“I started in COVID when I knew I couldn’t be made fun of,” McCain said before the season during an appearance on The Brotherhood Podcast. “I saw a lot of basketball players on TikTok and I was like, ‘I can do that. I can do that better.’ ”
The result has been a series of videos where McCain sings, dances and just generally acts goofy. He delivers with a million-dollar smile and painted fingernails that made him not only a social media star, but a high school NIL star as well.
“My daughters were in high school and they think he’s a dork,” Giles said, laughing. “But he’s a genuinely good dude that everybody who comes in contact with likes.
“Don’t let the dancing and the finger painting fool you.”
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While McCain has embraced his TikTok stardom, feeding the social media beast and pushing his NIL partners daily, he’s a hooper at heart and takes the game seriously.
That commitment came when McCain was in the eighth grade and his family moved from Sacramento to Southern California to attend Centennial with a twofold mission: to be closer to their son, Jayce McCain, who was playing at Cal State San Marcos, just north of San Diego; and to put Jared McCain in a basketball environment that would maximize his potential. Serious pursuits of basketball greatness now require full-time trainers, which is how Shea Frazee (Houston Rockets guard Aaron Holiday is one of his clients) entered McCain’s world.
Frazee’s first impression of McCain, who had worked with McCain and his brother off and on before taking on the full-time responsibility?
“Slow-footed, no muscle definition,” Frazee recalled. “But, as an individual and as a human being, Jared had some qualities that I really hadn’t seen before. A natural curiosity and a willingness to try to figure things out.”
It was about that time that Giles heard that McCain, who already had a reputation as a baller, had moved to the area.
“First thing I heard was that he was a chubby kid,” Giles said. “When he got here, I remember saying ‘he sure looks good to me.’ ”
Even though Giles had a senior-heavy team returning that season, he realized almost immediately that McCain would play on the varsity.
“I remember an early game where — while he wasn’t playing — he was asking our assistant a ton of questions like, ‘when we blitz the ball screen from the weak side, do I have to tag the roller here?’ or ‘when the coach calls this, does he want me to be over here?’ ” Giles recalled. “He’s asking so many questions that the coach turned around and said, ‘kid, can you shut up?’ ”
McCain would not be deterred. He continued to ask questions, applying what he learned to his play, which increased in his freshman year. Giles was so impressed by the play of McCain and Donovan Dent and Aaron McBride, the two players he entered high school with, that he got rid of several of his top players (two of whom eventually earned major Division I scholarships after finishing their high school careers at other schools) the next season.
“We were in a rough spot in our program where we won a lot of games, but we weren’t good enough to beat Sierra Canyon or Mater Dei,” Giles said. “I felt guys were coming here saying, ‘what can Centennial do for me?’ So, I told them they could still attend Corona Centennial, but they just couldn’t play basketball. And we replaced them with Jared, Donovan and Aaron — we felt that good about them.”
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“During the COVID shutdown you were either going to take advantage of not being in school and really work to get better, or you were going to sit around and not do s—. There were a few guys who worked their butts off. Jared was one of them.” — Josh Giles
The coronavirus pandemic that delayed the start of the 2020-21 season proved pivotal to McCain’s development as a basketball player and as a social media personality.
During the coronavirus lockdown, McCain posted singing and dancing videos to TikTok, a platform that exploded in popularity during the pandemic and was instrumental in keeping people, especially young people, connected.
As McCain sang and danced his way through the launch of his social media journey, he also dedicated himself to his basketball workouts and the weight room.
“During the COVID shutdown you were either going to take advantage of not being in school and really work to get better, or you were going to sit around and not do s—,” said Giles, who put his team through workouts on the Zoom platform during the lockdown. “There were a few guys who worked their butts off. Jared was one of them.”
When the team gathered to work out and practice together after the initial doom and gloom phase of the pandemic, the Centennial coaches were flabbergasted.
“I said, ‘look at the size of Jared,’ ” Giles recalled. “He put on 15 pounds, and it was all muscle. Sturdy, superstrong. That’s when you really started to see the difference.”
The added strength provided McCain a full arsenal of skills: a midrange jumper and ability to finish at the rim to go along with his silky jump shot. As a sophomore, he emerged as a key component to the Centennial team that in 2021, with Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James and rapper Drake sitting courtside, defeated Sierra Canyon (and James’ son Bronny) for the first of three straight CIF Southern Section Open Division titles.
2021 proved to be McCain’s coming-out party. Two months after winning that CIF title, he went to Peach Jam and averaged 20.5 points on the way to winning the MVP award at the prestigious Nike EYBL tournament.
“Peach Jam was when I realized he could excel at any level,” Frazee said. “I had seen him make the shots he was taking, but never on a platform like that. Jared’s on the best team in his age group [Team Why Not] and is, arguably, the best player on the floor.”
“I would take the team to dinner while he stayed at the gym to sign autographs and take pictures with his fans. And then the principal and athletic director would bring him to where we were eating. He was a one-person boy band.”
— Centennial High School coach Josh Giles
The more Centennial won, the more McCain’s basketball profile rose. But he was becoming equally as popular on TikTok, which led to McCain’s senior season when basketball and social media collided.
“We played a preseason tournament game at Bishop Gorman [Las Vegas] and we were trapped in a room for over a half hour because there were so many people outside,” Giles said. “We had to create a wall to get out and I told him to put his hood on, keep his head down and keep moving forward.”
Security traveled with the team following that incident, and in the games that followed the school’s principal, who traveled with Centennial, directed fans after games to line up in an orderly fashion for a meet-and-greet.
“I would take the team to dinner while he stayed at the gym to sign autographs and take pictures with his fans,” Giles said. “And then the principal and athletic director would bring him to where we were eating. He was a one-person boy band.”
When NIL became available, McCain struck gold as advertisers hungered to ride the wave of his popularity.
“All the attention, all of the money, he could have been an absolute prick on campus,” Giles said. “He never changed. He talks to everybody. Every person at Centennial High School that ever had an interaction with Jared McCain absolutely loves him.”
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Shortly after McCain dropped in his sixth straight 3-pointer late in the first half of Sunday’s second-round win against James Madison, he turned in the direction of the Duke bench and offered a simple shoulder shrug. It channeled NBA great Michael Jordan’s reaction to his sixth 3-pointer in the first half during Game 1 of the 1992 NBA Finals.
“I think so, I’m pretty sure that’s what I hit,” McCain said, when asked if he was channeling his inner MJ. “I wasn’t really conscious out there.”
That stat line he posted on Sunday — 30 points and five rebounds — was impressive. McCain joined NBA players Zion Williamson, Tyreke Evans, Kevin Durant and retired player Carmelo Anthony as the last five freshmen to post 30 points and five rebounds in a men’s NCAA tournament game.
“He’s not fazed by anything,” Scheyer said of McCain. “I’m just really proud of his effort and just him being different.”
That difference in McCain and all that goes into his social media stardom also brings a certain level of hate that extends beyond the normal loathing athletes get when they attend Duke.
As the hate mounted this season, former North Carolina Tar Heel John Henson chimed in during The Field of 68: After Dark podcast.
“Bro, bro, bro, bro, bro, if I played and Jared McCain was singing on Instagram and all that stuff, man, we would have Reggie Bullock and been like, ‘Look, man, put him in a locker.’ Man, this dude is not getting off on us … Like, what kind of dawg is he? Is he a pit bull? Or is he a golden retriever? We can’t call everybody dawgs. But he’s a good player.”
That hate unveils one of McCain’s greatest superpowers: In an age where many young people wilt under social media pressure, he doesn’t care.
“Why am I being hated on? All I’m doing is dancing and smiling and trying to spread some positivity,” McCain said at the team’s preseason media day. “I’m just being me, so I can’t listen to other people’s opinions. It’s just them wanting to project their insecurities, them wanting what I have.”
Here’s one thing that McCain has had at every level of his basketball career.
Success.
“He won in high school, a McDonald’s All-American, a USA Basketball gold medalist, all he’s had is success and he worked hard for it,” Giles said. “Even when he went to Duke, people asked ‘do you think he’ll play?’
“One day he’s gonna play in the NBA. Sooner rather than later.”