Dallas ? Aces can count as little or big in blackjack, but when you’re a 6-foot-8-inch, 250-pound basketball player, you’re expected to work the low post and keep saying, “hit me.”

Aaron McGhee’s Oklahoma teammates call him “Ace” because of his considerable scoring and rebounding skills, but it has taken him five seasons and three programs to learn to use the body nature dealt him.

Oklahoma's Aaron McGhee, left, and teammate Quannas White celebrate. OU defeated Xavier, 78-65, Sunday in the NCAA West Region.

McGhee, whose team will meet Arizona on Thursday in the NCAA West Regional semifinal in San Jose (6:55 p.m. CST), has an adroit outside shot and an 81 percent free-throw percentage. But when he arrived in Norman after stints at Cincinnati and Vincennes (Ind.) Junior College, he still wasn’t asserting himself under the basket.

“When we got him, he looked a lot better than he played,” Sooners coach Kelvin Sampson said. “I used to tell him, ‘You’re the only guy I know who looks like Godzilla and plays like a nun.’ I meant that to get him to understand how soft he played. He’s a kid that had this great body, yet didn’t like contact.”

McGhee smiled when reminded of the comment, which stung but had the desired effect.

“I knew I was more than capable of playing better,” he said. “That’s all he wanted. … It took me a season to realize what major college basketball was all about. I like to shoot. That’s no secret. God gave me this big body, so I might as well use it.”

It has all come together this season for the 22-year-old senior, who averaged 15 points and nearly eight rebounds a game during the regular season and finally seems to have conquered his tendency to play like a small forward encased in a power forward’s armor.

The contradiction has dogged McGhee throughout his career, starting with his years at East Aurora, Ill., High where he was named second-team all-state in 1996-97.

“He was pretty much unstoppable one-on-one his senior year,” said his high school coach, Scott Martens. “He averaged over 24 points a game, and that was with two people hanging on him most of the time. But he was pretty weak. I don’t think he could have done 20 pushups.”

McGhee sat out the 1997-98 season at Cincinnati due to academic ineligibility. The following year, the Bearcats’ roster bristled with talent and McGhee played sparingly, averaging only eight minutes a game.

McGhee decided his prospects with the Bearcats weren’t bright enough, and departed for Vincennes knowing he wouldn’t come back.

“When I left Cincinnati, for a while I didn’t even want to play basketball,” he said.

Sampson came calling even before McGhee’s stellar junior-college season, where he set the Vincennes single-season scoring record of 874 points.

The transition wasn’t always smooth. Twice last season Sampson sent McGhee packing from practice.

On other occasions he has asked McGhee to show up early, then had other coaches or players pound him with the same pads used in football drills as he drove inside.

McGhee scored a total of 51 points and collected 17 rebounds in the games against UIC and Xavier for the best back-to-back performances of his career.