'Mature beyond his years': Former Kaukauna star Jordan McCabe joins young UWGB men's basketball staff

GREEN BAY – University of Wisconsin-Green Bay men’s basketball coach Sundance Wicks first met Jordan McCabe at the CPS Rising Stars National Camp in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in 2014.

It was the summer entering McCabe’s freshman season at Kaukauna, where he’d go on to have a prolific career that netted a WIAA Division 2 state championship and a scholarship to West Virginia.

Wicks served as the director of the middle school combine at the camp and instructed a group that included McCabe and future Minnesota Timberwolves center and NBA sixth man of the year Naz Reid.

They ran into each other again seven years later when Wicks was an assistant coach at Wyoming and McCabe was in his first season playing at UNLV after entering the NCAA transfer portal.

Both schools are members of the Mountain West Conference, and Wicks developed scouting reports on McCabe for two seasons.

“He is mature beyond his years,” Wicks said. “That’s what I’ve always noticed about Jordan, just how he has always handled himself. He has been in the spotlight for a long time now. Look at what he did at Kaukauna and how he’s had his career. He’s always been in the spotlight. He’s always had a light shining on him.”

The two will now team up after Wicks announced the hiring of McCabe as an assistant Monday. Wicks had an opening on his staff after Zach Malvik was named the new leader at UW-Eau Claire on April 4.

McCabe, 25, started his coaching career last season as an assistant under interim coach Josh Eilert at West Virginia.

When Wicks was hired at UWGB last year, McCabe went on social media to wish him good luck and tell everyone Wicks was exactly what the program needed.

“He didn’t have to do that, right?” said Wicks, who was named the Horizon League coach of the year after leading UWGB to an 18-14 record his first season. “For him to kind of quote tweet that when nobody in Wisconsin really knew who I was and people knew who he was, even though he is a lot younger, it validated the level of maturity and forward thinking that he has.

“We had always kind of either texted each other or DM'd each other and stayed in touch. I’ve always liked watching him do his educational stuff on Instagram, teaching guard play and skills. He is one of these guys who is built for this profession.”

McCabe also was a contender for the opening because Wicks always wants a Wisconsin native as part of his staff, someone who is entrenched or has grown up in the area and understands it.

Wicks believes McCabe’s addition is perfect for where the program is, especially with what he wants going forward with recruiting and developing and having a fresh set of eyes. It certainly helps to have some young blood who knows what it’s like to come up in the present landscape of college basketball.

“He’s been able to do it all by the time he’s 25,” Wicks said. “It always ends up working itself out for me. There can kind of be this vision I have, and then all of a sudden, the universe provides it.”

The universe might have really been at work after the season when Wicks received a text message from McCabe while Wicks was sitting outside Hagemeister Park getting prepared for a recruiting visit.

Wicks called McCabe a short time later and was as impressed with him as he had been every other time the two interacted. McCabe wasn’t even calling about coming to UWGB, considering Malvik was still on staff at the time.

It was more a mentorship call. He wanted to know if Wicks had advice on navigating through what was happening at West Virginia with a new coach coming in, which often leads to an uncertain future for assistants from the previous regime.

“It was a cool, casual conversation about life and what this profession is like,” Wicks said. “I’ve been on his side, where it hadn’t worked out on the staff before and things went haywire. I have a lot of empathy for those situations.”

Jordan McCabe gets early start on coaching career

The 5-foot-10 McCabe was one of the best prep players in the state during his time at Kaukauna. He finished his career with 2,442 points and was named Mr. Basketball as a senior in 2018.

He spent his first three seasons in college at West Virginia and led the Mountaineers in assists as a freshman before transferring to UNLV for his final two seasons and starting 33 of 55 games.

He considered playing overseas after graduation but already had started to think about a career in coaching.

The obsession and passion he holds for the game made him realize he never wanted to do anything outside of basketball.

McCabe reached out before last season to West Virginia coach Bob Huggins about a job on his staff, perhaps in a player development role. If not, he hoped maybe Huggins could help him find a job on some other staff.

“I figured if I was a 5-10 unathletic guy who could play in the Big 12, what could I do with somebody who is 6-7 with a 40-inch vertical and has a lot of natural ability?” McCabe said last season. “Try to instill some of the work ethic and nuance that I took upon myself in my own player development.”

He and his fiancee, Olivia, moved to Morgantown on what was a handshake agreement with Huggins. No contract was presented. Nothing was signed.

The only problem was that Huggins stepped down at the start of last June, making it an “eventful” time in McCabe’s life.

It all worked out when Eilert hired him as an assistant.

Being a coach for the first time gave him a different perspective, one that he will take with him to UWGB.

“I always thought as a player, I would sit there and think, ‘Man, coaching is so easy, I don’t know why they are always upset or grumpy,’” McCabe said. “Now, I see the flip side of that. You realize as a player, you have to worry about yourself and that’s pretty much it. Make sure you are doing your job well.

“That’s what a coach does, he has got to think about all the moving pieces within an organization and within a team. Every decision affects every one of our guys right down the roster.”

UWGB has young coaching staff

Wicks has two young coaches on his staff. Nic Reynolds won’t turn 30 until September. McCabe won't turn 26 until the beginning of that same month.

Pat Monaghan is the grizzled veteran at 40.

Wicks doesn’t view youth as a bad thing in the coaching world.

“It’s a great thing,” he said. “Age is not determinative of skill level. Always put that disclaimer in there. There’s a lot of people who can be doing this for a long time who can be stuck in their ways. Have a lot of content knowledge, but not know how to apply it to a changing game.

“I think that’s what we have to understand with the landscape. It’s evolving fast. You either adapt or die. If you are not constantly evolving and reinventing who you are and what your program is and what it could be here in the future, you are going to be the last person selling CDs out of your trunk.”

McCabe’s role hasn’t been defined yet, but there is a good chance everybody’s role will be redefined this offseason.

“You kind of live in this space with your people for a year, and you find out naturally what guys are good at,” Wicks said. “Then you can fill a void here or I can fill a spot here. I think what we will do with the entire staff is reevaluate what everybody is going to do this year and what makes us best work together.

“That’s why I love the person more than the position. You want a staff who wants to learn and grow and improve in areas. I may give different opportunities to guys on staff and not just have them stay in their wheelhouse, because I might want them to grow a little bit more.”

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Former Kaukauna star Jordan McCabe joins UWGB men's basketball staff