McNaull Finds SDSU’s Season A Bitter One : Basketball: He has changed position and is enduring a losing season with many trials and challenges.

The season seized long, tall Joe McNaull and then dragged him along like an unwilling child on a shopping trip for school clothes.

The losses, the playing time, the travel, the transition from forward to center, the nagging injuries--all have conspired to wear down McNaull and make him feel like he just finished working the graveyard shift at the local foundry.

So he leaves each practice these days with a banana.

It is part of San Diego State’s new program designed to improve McNaull’s diet and, therefore, make him stronger.

A banana.

What a season.

The Aztecs are 2-14 and McNaull, a 6-foot-10 sophomore from Monte Vista High, leads the team in playing time with 493 minutes--an average of 31 per game. He has played through tendinitis in his knee, a badly jammed index finger on his shooting hand and a pulled left hamstring, which happened Wednesday and nearly kept him out of Thursday’s game against Texas El Paso.

He has complained for about 1 1/2 weeks of being constantly tired, so Coach Jim Brandenburg had him tested earlier this week for mononucleosis and strep throat, among other things.

Like so many other aspects of SDSU’s season, the tests were negative, and so McNaull, who leads the Aztecs by averaging 15 points and nine rebounds per game, slogs onward. Next up is a rematch with New Mexico at 5 tonight in the San Diego Sports Arena.

He has never been through a season as difficult as this one.

“Not even in sixth grade,” he said.

In high school, McNaull’s Monte Vista teams won 20 games in a down year.

And in sixth grade?

“Even then, I was on pretty good teams,” McNaull said. “Of course, then I was sorry--I couldn’t play. I was too uncoordinated.”

Now, entering this week, he was second in the Western Athletic Conference in rebounding, third in field goal percentage (58.7%) and blocked shots (1.40 per game) and seventh in scoring.

All in all, not bad increases over last season, when McNaull averaged only five points and four rebounds per game.

Professional scouts watch him intently and scribble notes.

“He’s got a nice jump hook inside and he posts to the board real hard,” said former Boston guard Dennis Johnson, now a Celtics scout. “I think Joe is good right now at the sophomore stage. Two years from now, I think a lot of scouts will be in here watching him.”

Said broadcaster and former UCLA star Bill Walton: “Joe McNaull, I think, is an outstanding prospect. He has a nice feel for the athletic aspect of the game, good anticipation of where the ball is going and a nice, soft shooting touch.”

Yes, McNaull seems to have a bright future. But as for the present. . . .

“I’m just trying to play hard,” he said. “Fight through it. You can’t let the peripheral stuff bother you.”

At 19, McNaull has been thrust into the key role in SDSU’s cram-the-ball inside offense. There are no upperclassmen who are centers and, aside from McNaull, SDSU’s two other center candidates are true freshmen. So he collects his minutes like some people collect baseball cards.

“I think he’s done a nice job switching to center,” Brandenburg said. “Obviously, it’s a new set of skills. You need a lot more physical strength and endurance to play 40 minutes, and you have to work hard for the ball--and depend on your teammates to get it to you. You’ve got to have patience.”

At 230 pounds, McNaull is about 25 pounds heavier than he was last season. Walton doesn’t think McNaull should have put on the extra weight this season.

“He came in (to college) mobile and active and ran the floor extremely well,” Walton said. “But some people wanted him to put on weight, and I think Joe really hurt himself by doing that. Basketball is a game of quickness and maneuverability, and I think the extra weight really slowed him down.

“That’s not his game. He’s not a power guy.”

But SDSU doesn’t have any other power guys this season, and so McNaull fills the bill. Overall, it has been a good season. Still, there have been difficult moments.

At UC Irvine, McNaull managed only three points and no rebounds.

At New Mexico nine days ago, he had only one point and two rebounds.

And then Saturday at Texas El Paso, he had 10 rebounds but only six points.

“At the beginning of the year, nobody knew who I was,” McNaull said. “I was scoring at will, and it was one on one.

“Last week, there were two and three guys on me at a time. I didn’t know how to handle it.”

For now, McNaull, not even halfway through his college career, has much to prove. He must hold his own against beefier players in the WAC; he must play consistently over a long season.

Until then, though, there are bananas. And, a prescription to get more sleep at night and to take supplemental vitamins.

McNaull came back with 15 points and six rebounds against UTEP Thursday during SDSU’s 77-54 loss but, for now, only two numbers stand out in his mind.

Two and 14.

“It’s kind of taught me how to deal with adversity,” McNaull said. “Not to run and hide when things are going bad. You’ve got to keep going.”

No, when you are 6 feet 10 and one of the better players in the WAC, and when your team is 2-14, it is difficult to hide.

You can only try to persevere. And eat your bananas.