Not so long ago, one of the deadliest scorers in college basketball couldn't do a pull-up. He could barely bench the bar. "It was terrible," says his coach. His coach happens to be his dad, who joked that after a summer of lifting weights and pounding pasta, Antoine Davis is all the way up to 140 pounds. Mike Davis is selling him about 28 pounds short, one for every point his son might average this season. In his fifth and final year at University of Detroit Mercy, Antoine Davis is coming for the record books.
"To be totally honest with you, college basketball hasn’t really seen him," Mike Davis said as he prepares for his fifth season coaching the Titans. "His first 10 games his freshman year they got a glimpse. But once everybody realized, we don’t have to guard anyone else, he really had to fight for everything. With his added strength and the added guys on our team, college basketball will get a chance to see the real thing."
At UDM, Antoine Davis has shined in the shadows. The Titans play their home games in front of sparse crowds in an old gym. So it goes for a mid-major program with one NCAA Tournament appearance this century. Antoine spent last season leapfrogging legends like Bill Bradley, Robert Parish and Steph Curry on college basketball's all-time scoring list. He blew past one of his favorite players growing up, Jimmer Fredette, who piled up 2,599 points in 139 games at BYU. Davis, the reigning Horizon League Player of the Year, matched that in his 104th game at UDM.
Davis enters this season No. 22 all time. By Christmas, he will likely become the 11th player ever with 3,000 career points. He will have passed Larry Bird, Oscar Robertson and Elvin Hayes in the process -- and Otis Birdsong, his dad will have you know, "a special, special scorer." If he plays in all 32 scheduled games for the Titans and maintains his career average of about 25 points per game, Davis will leave Detroit Mercy as the second greatest scorer in college basketball history.
If he takes it up a notch and the Titans extend their season in March, Pete Maravich's all-time record of 3,667 points might not be out of reach.
"I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t in the back of my mind, thinking about it," said the 24-year-old Davis. "What it would be like to break it or what it would be to even finish top five or top three. I want to break it, but I’m just more focused on winning."
Winning hasn't come easy at Detroit Mercy. The Titans have made the NCAA Tournament six times in program history. They haven't been ranked in the Top 25 since the 1970's. They are 45-69 under Mike Davis, who once took Indiana to the Final Four and later led Texas Southern to four Tournaments in a span of five years. That led him to UDM, where Davis arrived in 2018 with Antoine in tow. A three-star recruit who backed out of a commitment to Houston to play for his dad, Antoine, excuse the expression, shot the sh*t out of the ball as soon as he showed up. He dropped 30-plus five times in the first month of his freshman season. He finished third in the country in scoring. He hasn't stopped scoring since.
Like any dad, Mike Davis wants the best for his son. Like any good coach, he wants more for his best player. Over the summer, he set Antoine up with his old friend Lou DeNeen, who was the strength and conditioning coach under Davis for several years at University of Alabama Birmingham. DeNeen took one look at his new pupil and "couldn't believe how weak he was," Davis said. Specifically, "He couldn’t believe the success he’s had over the years being this weak." Antoine played last season at about 155 pounds, a bouncing beanpole. He plans to play this one at 170.
"He’s jumping off the floor," Davis said. "Quicker, more explosive. This is where he should have been after his freshman year, but it’s never too late because he's skilled enough and now he’s getting stronger."
Antoine has felt it in practice. He said he's not getting bumped off his spots as much -- and his spots are anywhere on this side of Woodward. When he's being held, he can fight through it. He said he's playing "a lot more powerful." He also has an improved cast of ball-handlers around him after UDM landed three former top-100 recruits in the transfer portal and a smooth freshman point guard. A lighter load should mean lighter legs for the 6'1 Davis as the season progresses.
All of which gets his dad thinking:
"Everybody is saying he can be the second all-time leading scorer, but 933 points (in a season) has been done by 21 different players. With the strength he has, with the way he’s working right now, shooting 2,000 shots every day, his percentages have gone way up in practice, like, way up, he could easily average 28, 29 points a game with 10 assists. He could get the record if his percentages stay where they need to be."
Davis has done the math: Antoine is, indeed, 933 points shy of Maravich. Chris Clemons, who ranks third on the all-time scoring list, scored that many in 33 games four years ago at Campbell. Doug McDermott, sixth on the all-time scoring list, scored that many in 35 games nine years ago at Creighton. Heck, Markus Keene scored that many in 32 games just a handful of years ago at Central Michigan. It can be done.
Assuming he stays healthy, one thing is clear. Antoine won't want for shots. He's averaged about 20 per game at UDM, with more than half coming from three. He shoots from anywhere because he can score from anywhere, like the Hall of Famer whose freshman three-point record Antoine shattered four years ago and whose trainer he worked with this summer: Steph Curry. Mike Davis orchestrated it through a mutual friend and now Antoine is shooting the ball like never before.
Davis said 17 to 19 shots per game is a good place for Antoine to be this season. The aim isn't fewer shots, but fewer contested shots. His stroke is pure. With better looks, he should hit over 40 percent from three and over 50 percent from the field for the first time in his career. He would have to average about 30 points over 32 games to catch Maravich -- or the Titans would have to earn more games in March. They did go 20-13 in the conference over the past two seasons.
"To do it in a winning fashion would be even more memorable for me," Antoine said, "not to do it just to score and have a bad record."
Antoine nearly wrote this conclusion elsewhere. While his dad was working the portal last spring, Antoine entered it himself, pondering a move to a bigger program: brighter lights for a potentially brighter future. He narrowed his choices down to Kansas State and BYU and said he "was really close" to leaving. There was particular appeal in following in the footsteps of Fredette. But fewer shadows bring fewer shots.
Antoine will finish his career where it started, he will have his No. 0 retired on senior night and he will get the chance this season to out-gun Pistol Pete.
"That was part of it, and then I just really couldn’t imagine playing anywhere else," he said. "I started here, we had rough patches throughout the years but we slowly developed and got better and I just really want to see this program win. I couldn’t have seen myself playing for another team."
Antoine Davis is a volume shooter, yes. So were most of the all-time scorers he’s chasing. In a different era of basketball, Maravich took about 38 shots per game at LSU. Among some of the greats he passed last season, Davis has scored more points in fewer games than Hank Gathers, Joe Dumars and Michigan State’s Shawn Respert. Buckets are buckets, and Antoine Davis knows how to get 'em. (He's also on pace to break the Titans' program record for assists.)
Detroit opens the season Nov. 8 against Rochester, around the corner at Calihan Hall. Davis will likely pass J.J. Redick in game two, Allan Houston in game three. Then Birdsong and Bird, then Hansbrough and Hayes. He just might pass Oscar Robertson at the Big O's alma mater when Detroit visits Cincinnati Dec. 21. This is poetry in motion, like an arching three pointer that dusts off the net in a quiet gym. This is a re-write of history in our own backyard, whether Antoine Davis can believe it or not.
"I just thought I’d have a good college career," he said. "I never thought I would be saying, I could break Pistol Pete Maravich’s record."
Listen live to 97.1 The Ticket via:
Audacy App | Online Stream | Smart Speaker