Malachi Smith is no stranger to being doubted.
As an Illinois high school basketball standout, he had no stars as a college prospect according to 247Sports.com. That was the case despite earning all-conference and all-state recognition and helping Belleville West win the Class 4A state title in 2018 to cap his senior season. As for college offers, he had only a handful — so few they could be counted on one hand — but wound up excelling for Wright State, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Gonzaga.
Five years later, he’s in a similar situation, but that hasn’t discouraged Smith. He’s used to it now.
Smith, who spent three of his five college years at UTC, elected a few weeks ago to forgo the NCAA’s extra season of eligibility granted during the coronavirus pandemic. Instead, he remained in the pool for this year’s NBA draft, which takes place Thursday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Smith finished college with 1,626 points, 692 rebounds and 299 assists. A Horizon League All-Freshman selection at Wright State, he redshirted his first season at UTC due to transfer rules but was an All-Southern Conference first-team selection his final two seasons with the Mocs, helping them sweep the SoCon regular-season and tournament titles in 2022 to reach the NCAA tournament. He was also the SoCon player of the year and won the Lou Henson Award as the top mid-major conference player in the country that season.
With coach Lamont Paris leaving to take over at South Carolina and UTC facing significant roster turnover, Smith then transferred to Gonzaga, where in his lone season he was honored as the West Coast Conference’s sixth man of the year and helped the Bulldogs reached the NCAA tourney’s Elite Eight, where they lost to eventual national champion Connecticut.
The 6-foot-4, 205-pound guard knew his role would decrease as he went from being a point guard and high-volume player for UTC to coming off the bench at Gonzaga, but he fit right in, averaging 8.7 points and 3.6 rebounds for the Bulldogs while shooting 54% from the field, 50% from 3-point range and 79% from the free-throw line. Just as importantly, he proved to be a versatile defender who guarded some of the country’s best players, including likely first-round draft picks Brandon Miller of Alabama and Jaime Jaquez of UCLA.
“I just think it’s a true testament to his character,” Gonzaga big man Drew Timme, a three-time All-American, said of Smith after the Bulldogs beat UCLA in the Sweet 16. “I don’t know how many people in general are OK with accepting a lesser role, because he’s way more capable than I think you guys see. He comes in, he works hard. He does everything that’s asked of him and more.”
And yet Smith sees his name in no mock drafts. Neither does Jake Stephens (7-0, 275) — who played four years at Virginia Military Institute before closing out his college career with UTC this past season — nor former Furman forward Jalen Slawson (6-7, 215), considered the SoCon’s top two NBA prospects this year.
Smith is not concerned.
“Coming out of high school, I had no one thinking I was going to make it this far, to this point,” he said Wednesday while in Memphis prepping to watch the draft with family. “It’s a different level, a different skill, but it’s the same thing.
“People doubt, people don’t think it can happen, and I guess I just focus on controlling what I can control, and that’s the work I put in. It’s the things behind closed doors, and at the end of the day, if I continue to do what I’ve been doing that got me to this point, I know it’s going to work out.”
That type of faith led him from a successful career at UTC to his transfer to Gonzaga. Smith was frustrated with the performance he had in his final game as a Moc, shooting just 4-for-20 for 12 points in a 54-53 loss to Illinois in the first round of the NCAA tourney, when the Mocs led until the final minute. It was the only game the Mocs played against a power-conference opponent that season, and Smith felt he needed a chance to showcase his entire skill set at the highest level of the college game, which Gonzaga provided.
He never forgot about that game. With the Bulldogs, he performed while facing the elite of the elite, and whatever the next chance is — whether it’s hearing his name called Thursday, being invited to take part in summer league competition for the NBA or another opportunity to play pro basketball — he’ll be ready.
“There’s a saying that you have to fail to know what success feels like,” Smith said. “That was a dark, rough moment for me because I know the work I put in, and obviously not being able to capitalize on the opportunity that we had against Illinois was really frustrating, because I felt it fell on my shoulders. But going to Gonzaga, I knew I was going to get a chance to redeem myself, and I feel like I did that.
“It just showed that the work paid off.”
Contact Gene Henley at [email protected].
