Fredericton basketball star Malcolm Christie will play against top university players in the United States next season.
After being approached by multiple NCAA Division 1 teams, Christie has committed to playing for Oakland University in Michigan.
“It felt great. Like it was a really flattering and cool experience going through talking to some of these coaches and to some of these schools. It was pretty fun,” said Christie.
Christie is coming off a terrific season with the Dalhousie Tigers in Halifax, where he had a season-high 51-point game, won the conference MVP, and helped his team win the Atlantic University Sport championship.
He is an elite three-point shooter, with enough athleticism to blow by defenders who try to guard him a little too closely.
“The way he’s just shooting the ball and running off screens, it’s just it’s phenomenal,” said Mike King, who coached Christie at Fredericton High School.
“You watch some of the games that he’s had this year with Dal. He’s just shooting at a high clip, and that’s what the Oakland coach wants.”
Christie says he heard there were universities interested in him throughout last season, but he told any potential suitors that they would have to wait until his season with Dalhousie was over.
Oakland University is coming off an exciting March. The team made the NCAA championship tournament and defeated the fan favourite Kentucky Wildcats during March Madness.
But Christie didn’t pick Oakland for its big tournament win. He will have just one year to make his mark in Oakland after playing three seasons at Dalhousie. It will be his final year of eligibility, and he wants to make it count.
“That’s the biggest thing. If I’m going to make this change, it has to be perfect. I don’t really have time to go to one of these, I guess, higher-ranked schools or power conference schools and sit, you know. That’ll be a waste of a year for me for what I’m trying to do.”
Christie also had interest from other big universities, such as Illinois, New Mexico and West Virginia.
After three years at Dalhousie University, Malcolm Christie has committed to playing for Oakland University in Michigan and hopes to inspire other young players along the way.
It came down to Oakland and the University of the Pacific, but in the end he chose Oakland.
“It felt like it was kind of a home, and a good environment — somewhere that I think I could do well and be an impact guy pretty much right away,” said Christie.
The goals for next season are simple to say, but certainly not easy to do. Christie hopes to help Oakland win their conference and return to the NCAA championship tournament.
After that, Christie hopes to play basketball professionally.
“I don’t know what level that is right now, and I don’t really want to put limits on it. I want to see how far I can go. And I think that, you know, playing Division 1 is the ultimate stepping stone to help with that,” said Christie.
Christie is one of two recent New Brunswickers to play Division 1 basketball in the U.S. Julian Roche of Saint John played for Santa Clara University during the 2017-2018 season.
Mike King said having young players in Fredericton see Christie play at the highest level will show them that they can get to that level, too.
He had Christie come to a practice with his son’s U11 team and explained to the kids what Christie has achieved.
“Just talking to some of their parents after the practice, the players went home and talked about [Christie]. So obviously they … understood that he’s going to play where these big schools play. So it’s a big deal.”
Christie hopes that’s true. He wants people watching from New Brunswick — especially young players who want to play hoops — to see that it doesn’t matter where you come from. And then maybe more players will get to follow in his footsteps.
“I know that I won’t be the last one,” said Christie.
