Malachi Davis spent a healthy chunk of his post-secondary basketball career playing at Laker Field House at Lake Land College in Mattoon, Ill., and the 812-seat Bill Hebrock Eagledome at Tallahassee State College in Florida.
His old Toronto high school teammate Jamal Fuller toiled in obscurity at the Bob Bullock Sports Center at Hill College in Hillsboro, Texas and the Kezar Pavilion, where a San Francisco university called the Academy of Art used to play the sport.
About the only thing these four buildings have in common with, say, Madison Square Garden is that they, too, have basketball nets. The Canadian guards were about as close to March Madness as the Washington Generals tended to be in most of their games against the Harlem Globetrotters.
As we all know, however, one connection can change everything. Thanks in large part to the persistence of a young assistant coach from Toronto and a basketball bond developed in Florida, Davis and Fuller both ended up at Long Island University's campus in Brooklyn, N.Y., two years ago. Since then, three other Canadian players have joined them in the Big Apple under the guidance of head coach and longtime NYC NBAer Rod Strickland.
On Friday, Davis, Fuller, Shadrak Lasu of Winnipeg, Caleb Johnson of North Preston, N.S., and Max Ndlovu-Fraser of North Vancouver get the chance of a lifetime, alongside Canadian assistant coach Dalmar Ali.
They may not be the four- or five-star recruits we've seen more and more from Canada, but they're all part of a buzzy LIU Sharks team. They'll try to become just the third No. 16-seeded squad in NCAA tourney history to win a game when they face No. 1 Arizona on Friday in San Diego.
"To make this journey, it's a dream come true," said Davis, the second-leading scorer on the Sharks, behind ex-Central Technical School teammate Fuller.
"Not a lot of Canadians (get to) play Division I basketball and go to the March Madness tournament. The odds are very low. For me to be able to do that and with my teammate I went to high school with and then some of the other Canadians, it's just a surreal feeling."
Davis, as Ali says, is "the one that started it all." None of this happens without the two Toronto guys landing at different times at Tallahassee State College, which will never be confused with UConn or Duke.
Ali played soccer growing up and at downtown Toronto's George Brown College, but always had a huge passion for basketball — "I'm not the tallest dude," the five-foot-11 Ali quipped. He started helping the hoops staff at George Brown late last decade while also coaching at the Toronto Basketball Academy high-school program.
Then-Tallahassee State coach Zach Settembre, who is now coaching Division II New Mexico Highlands, developed a good working relationship with Ali while recruiting one of his kids. In 2020, Settembre gave Ali what turned out to be his big break, even if it wasn't exactly lucrative.
"He was like 'Listen, I can't offer you much, but I can give you somewhere to live and if you want an opportunity to come coach Juco (junior college) out here, I'd love to have you on my staff,'" Ali, 31, recalled. "That's all I ever wanted — an opportunity. Literally the next day, I packed up my Civic and drove down to Tallahassee, Fla."
After a promising first season at the school, there was an off-court altercation that led to suspensions and program upheaval. Fortunately, there was another opportunity in town. Ali latched on as a graduate assistant under head coach Leonard Hamilton at a slightly bigger school in Tallahassee — Florida State University — while working on his master's in sports management.
"Just as Scottie Barnes was out the door (after being drafted by the Toronto Raptors), I walked in," Ali chuckled.
While Ali was at Florida State, Davis ended up at Tallahassee State after two years at Lake Land College in Illinois. Ali was familiar with Davis from his days on the high-school scene at home, and lent a fellow Torontonian some assistance.
"I'd sneak him into the gym some nights and work him out and try to help him get better," Ali said.
In 2023, both men crossed the country. Hamilton recommended Ali to Strickland, who hired the Canadian as director of basketball operations for one of the worst teams in the little Northeast Conference (NEC) — one of nearly two dozen leagues that typically sends only its champion to the NCAA tourney. Davis, meanwhile, got a much bigger Division I shot at Arizona State.
A year later, Ali was promoted to assistant coach and started doing more recruiting for Strickland.
Davis, meanwhile, was coming off a rough D1 debut (0.6 points per game in seven appearances).
"I told him (to) take a chance on us," Ali said of his 2024 pitch. "I knew he didn't have the best of seasons at ASU.
"(Ali told him) 'Come rewrite history.' Once he was in, knew I had to go get Jamal (who was playing Division II at the Academy of Art, which discontinued its athletics programs at the end of last season)."
That summer, Ali went to a Toronto showcase event and gave Lasu, now a starting forward, his lone Division I offer.
There was heartbreak last year when Lasu committed a foul on a three-point shot in the dying seconds of what was a tied conference semifinal. It resulted in a season-ending loss to the Saint Francis Red Flash, who went on to win the NEC and a spot in the Big Dance.
"I know he (Lasu) was so broken," Ali said. "I remember he was crying non-stop for days."
But Lasu wasn't about to leave. The same wasn't sure to be true for Davis and Fuller, who entered the transfer portal.
"When I recruited them, I told them come here for a year, rebuild your brand and if you guys leave after a year, I won't be mad," Ali said. "Use us to get better."
But after exploring their options, Davis and Fuller told Ali they wanted to return. Together.
"I've been with him for 10-plus years," said Davis, who also played club ball with Fuller before Central Tech.
"The chemistry's there. I know his style, he knows my style. We complement each other on the court."
Two more Canadians were added in the off-season, along with other important transfers and recruits from the U.S., led by Chicago's Greg Gordon.
A good team got better, while the Canadian connection got stronger as the LIU Canucks made their way to Yankee Stadium for a Blue Jays playoff game in October.
"The environment was crazy," Davis said. "We had Blue Jays gear on and the Yankees fans were booing us and stuff. We ended up winning the game, too. There were just a bunch of jokes. So fun."
Meanwhile, crowds in the low hundreds for LIU games swelled with the wins and two diehard fans eventually went viral with their 'Go Fins' salute taking over the Steinberg Wellness Center.
"Last year, we only had 12 fans in the crowd, including the camera guy," Davis said with a laugh. "When I came to our first home game, I was like 'Where's everybody at?"
LIU's win over visiting Wagner in the conference semifinal earlier this month clinched the NEC's lone March Madness berth because fellow finalist Mercyhurst wasn't eligible for the national tourney by virtue of its recent promotion to Division I basketball. LIU finished the job, anyway, beating the Erie, Penn., school for the conference title before a boisterous Brooklyn crowd.
The challenge increases dramatically Friday on a neutral court at the opposite end of the U.S. Arizona, a popular pick to win the tournament, is favoured by more than 30 points against LIU.
The Sharks led games against SEC teams Georgia — a No. 8 seed in the tournament — and Mississippi State this season before falling short in the second half. That gives them confidence they can compete, despite the long odds and a significant size disadvantage — none of LIU's top five scorers are over six-foot-five, while three of Arizona's top five are six-foot-seven or taller.
"At the end of the day, we all bleed the same," Fuller said. "If we match that energy and we go out there and play our hardest, 100 per cent (the Sharks can have a shot)."
Added Ali: "The way we talk about this is everybody on this team, nobody wanted to give them a chance in the first place ... (Many of the players) feel like they're guys that didn't have opportunities. They're bounce-backs and they feel like their story is all about being the underdog. We love being the underdog. We go into every fight knowing we're going to give everything we've got and we're going to go to the end."
No matter what happens, they'll savour the moment. The Sharks avoid a pesky First Four game against a fellow small-conference champion, like four other potential No. 16 seeds, and get to battle three potential first-round NBA picks (Brayden Burries, Koa Peat and seven-foot-two Motiejus Krivas) on a national stage.
"This is the Madness," Fuller said. "This is what we dreamed of."
It's been an unforgettable season for Ali, who also was named the head coach of Somalia's men's basketball team (the birthplace of his parents).
Friday will take his resume to another level as Ali watches five of the 30-plus Canadians in the NCAA tournament suit up for his team.
"It's just the best feeling in the world knowing that 1) we did it and 2) we did it with kids that come from the same background I have," Ali said. "New York is coach Strickland's home, his backyard, and Canada is our home.
"We put the two together and we were able to do something special. It makes me so happy because I know what these kids have been through."
