“I’ve got a whole new lower body….I’ve had too much surgery and I’m testing out my new feet, my new ankles, my new knees.”
The slightly-built 6-foot-1 point guard with the penchant for driving the lane — where he’s often banged around like a pinball by the bigger guys inside — has been plagued by injuries in his first three seasons.
Although he’s been on the team for 102 regular season and tournament games, he’s been able to play in just 53.
As a freshman in 2021-22, he was hurt in the first half of the Atlantic 10 Tournament’s semifinal game with Richmond and the Flyers lost and were the first team left out of the NCAA Tournament.
After the 2022-23 season, he had ankle reconstruction surgery. Then just seven minutes into the season opener last year at UD Arena, he crumpled beneath the basket after a drive, the lateral meniscus in his right knee torn and he was lost for the season.
That surgery got the year written off as a medical redshirt. He spent the season on the bench in street clothes. He was part of the team and, at the same time, he was not.
“I was kind of down on myself and lost some of my confidence and just knowing who I am,” he admitted in a private moment as he stood in an Arena hallway after the game.
That’s when the Humpty Dumpty thoughts crept it.
As the old children’s rhyme goes: “Humpty Dumpty had a great fall…And all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty back together again.”
Although he said his surgeries went fine, as did the physical part of his rehab, he added “the mental part is still a work in progress.”
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
He admitted to being “a little nervous” when he started against Xavier in last Sunday’s exhibition, but said once he got into the flow of the game and hit the floor and got up — which he did a lot of against the Musketeers — he started to feel better and better:
“It’s like riding a bike.”
Saturday night Flyers head coach Anthony Grant saluted Smith’s “unbelievable amount of resiliency,” but added, “I think Mali’s still in the process of getting that confidence back.
“That’s the last part for him…where he can go out and do the things he needs to do for the season to be successful.”
Smith admitted early in this preseason he just “dipped his toe in the water” before diving back into his role on the court:
“At first, I was moving kind of slow. Kind of hesitant. But I think I’ve made great improvement since I first got cleared and I think my teammates would say that’s true. I think it’s showing on the court now. I’m playing more freely. I’m ready to go.”
Grant said Saturday night “you saw flashes” of the old Malachi on the court.
Freshman year he quickly showed he was more than just the little brother of Scoochie Smith, the Flyer favorite who scored 1,289 points in his UD career and led his teams to four straight NCAA Tournaments.
Credit: David Jablonski
Malachi earned a starting role by the fourth game of his first season and ended the year as part of the A-10′s All-Freshman Team.
Back then his older brother was even selling “Beast” T-shirts on his website that pictured his little brother and played up what Malachi called his “beast” style of play.
He once explained it to me: “Be a pest. Keep coming at you. I want you to be uncomfortable because then two things can happen. An opponent gets mad, and an opponent gets tired and then they make mistakes.”
Saturday against Ashland, like Grant said, you saw flashes of the old Malachi.
He played 27 ½ minutes, second most to Enoch Cheeks. He scored 12 points on 4 for 7 shooting and added four rebounds, four assists and a steal,
As he builds on that he could embrace the Bionic Man persona, a reference to the mythical USAF Colonel Steve Austin who was severely injured in a NASA test flight and was rebuilt with bionic implants that gave him superpowers.
The TV series was called “The Six Million Dollar Man” and he was dubbed “The Bionic Man.”
The Flyers are going to need Smith to think like that — and adopt the old Beast mode, as well — to help them have a successful season.
“I’m the point guard, so I have to try to be as vocal as I can and be the coach on the court,” he said.
And this team needs all the coaching it can get.
As both Smith and Grant admitted, the Flyers are still trying to figure out their identity.
Grant attributed some of it to the new transitory ways of college basketball. The team has several transfers and freshmen, all of whom are still trying to learn about each other, as well as the way Grant wants them to mesh into one.
Most glaring about this team is its lack of rebounding and its lapses of focus.
The Flyers barely edged the smaller Eagles on the boards, 42-36, and were outrebounded by Xavier, 35-27.
Except for Nate Santos — who made six of eight shots from long range and had 20 points — the Flyers were abysmal from three-point range Saturday. The rest of the team made only four of 23 attempts from beyond the arc.
Against Xavier, UD made just 21.4 percent (6 of 26) of its treys.
As for focus issues, the most notable came at the start of the second half when UD turned the ball over five straight times in the first 2 ½ minutes.
“It’s good to see what we need to work on,” Smith said before claiming, “It’s not anything major. If we play together as a team and learn each other’s identity, we can clean up that stuff.”
If he’s right — and he can facilitate much of that as the point guard — then it will be proof his Humpty days are done.
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