Puzzles are one of Mackenly Randolph’s favorite pastimes.
One night, she and teammate Rebekah Graves knocked out a 1,000-piece puzzle in a couple hours. Each piece helps to bring Randolph peace from a world that can sometimes be chaotic and overwhelming.
“That is my mind eraser,” she said. “It really keeps my mind mellow.”
The metaphorical puzzle of Randolph’s basketball career is one that she’s also still putting together as a sophomore for the Louisville women’s basketball team. And although being the daughter of former NBA All-Star Zach “Z-Bo” Randolph is a big piece of her puzzle, it’s not the only one she has to work with as she assembles her own legacy at Louisville.
The younger Randolph — who got her name from her father’s middle name, McKenley — took a huge stride in that process this season as a starter. She’s averaging 8.6 points on 53.6% shooting and 5.6 rebounds per game. She’s reached another level over the last month, recording her first four career double-doubles. The 6-foot forward was one point shy of her fifth double-double of the season (and third straight) after recording nine points and 13 rebounds in the Cards’ 69-68 Round of 32 win over Alabama, getting the team back to the Sweet 16 after a three-year hiatus.
Third-seeded Louisville (29-7) will now play second-seeded Michigan (27-6) at 12:30 p.m. Saturday for a chance to make the Elite Eight for the first time since the 2022-23 season.
“I think with Mack right now, it’s her consistency and ability to shoot the ball from the outside,” UofL coach Jeff Walz said. “She’s extremely strong in the post. She does a great job of finishing on post-ups, but at the beginning of the year she wasn’t shooting the ball with as much confidence. Now that she’s been working on it, because she’s able to step outside and shoot it, you have to respect that, which is now giving her, also, opportunities to post up.”
Handling fame
Me’Arah O’Neal can’t think of one game that Randolph wasn’t dominant in.
“Dog — that’s all I got to say,” O’Neal replied when asked about Randolph’s playing style. “D-A-W-G.”
The two played together on the Sports Academy Swish EYBL team and share similar life experiences as daughters of former NBA stars. They met during a tournament at the late Kobe Bryant’s Mamba facility the day before his tragic passing in January 2020.
O’Neal’s father, Shaquille, and Bryant won three NBA titles together with the Los Angeles Lakers. Randolph played on Bryant’s AAU team and was close friends with his daughter, Gigi. Their deaths are still too difficult for Randolph to discuss six years later, though she still carries the “Mamba mentality.”
“Work hard when you’re tired, when you’re sick, when you’re hurting, when you’re happy, when you’re sad,” Randolph explained, “and just staying consistent and doing those things that you have to do regardless.”
Grieving the deaths was a pain few could understand. O’Neal could. As their relationship developed, O’Neal saw an authenticity in Randolph she had struggled to find elsewhere.
“She’s probably one of the only people that I could talk to about any of this because she knows and she’s super real,” O’Neal said about Randolph also growing up in the limelight. “I feel like real people … they don’t exist nowadays as much as they did back then. So just to have her around from, even when Kobe died, just to keep somebody around that was there means a lot to me. She’s like my sister and I love her to death.”
In moments where fame became too much, Randolph would encourage O’Neal to be her own person and not let the pressure of being Shaq’s daughter get to her. It’s advice she’s also lived by in forging her own path.
Learning from the best
Off the court, Randolph is funny (sometimes unintentionally), caring and the kind of person Walz aspires for his daughters to emulate. The switch flips when she steps onto the hardwood. If she has to box out, dive for loose balls or impose her will in the paint, then that’s what she’ll do.
Walz calls it bully ball. For Randolph, it’s just basketball.
It’s the reason she gave up soccer and fell in love with the sport in middle school.
“I think the competitive nature,” she said, “being able to score and then scream in somebody’s face or being able to give somebody an elbow … and just, like, that physicality and just the competitiveness of it.”
Zach Randolph played the same way: fearless, aggressive and with reckless abandon. During his only season at Michigan State, he averaged 10.8 points and 6.7 rebounds before becoming the 19th overall pick in the 2001 NBA Draft, going to the Portland Trail Blazers.
Mackenly was born in Portland, Oregon, five years later. But her best basketball memories are from her dad’s time with the Memphis Grizzlies, where he spent eight seasons. During that era, the FedEx Forum, the Grizzlies’ home arena, was referred to as the Grindhouse. “Grit and Grind” became the team’s motto, inspired by its defensive-minded, gritty style of play.
With Tony Allen, known as “The Grindfather,” along with Mike Conley and Marc Gasol, who are like uncles, as Randolph’s examples of how to play basketball, why wouldn’t she play the same way? But for all the similarities to her father in her on-court play, she is also armed with the unique knowledge and experiences that come with being the child of a famous athlete — a reality Zach never knew.
Mackenly Randolph referred to her father’s fame and NBA career as a “cheat code.” It’s helped foster a maturity that was needed to handle all that Walz required of last year’s freshmen. The group made up nearly half the roster, and most of the newcomers were expected to contribute right away. Like Zach, Mackenly got some starting experience but came off the bench for most of her freshman season.
This year, she’s a full-time starter and has shown great improvement. Both of her parents, Zach and Faune, attend as many games as they can and offer balanced critiques. As a former gymnast and hooper, Faune also contributes to Randolph’s athletic genes but is softer in providing feedback about her daughter’s game. Zach is harder on her.
“She’s always in my ear telling me, like, ‘Oh, you’ve got to be better,’ but also telling me, ‘You’re doing such a good job,’” Randolph said. “She’s a good balance from basketball and Dad criticizing, telling you if you’re terrible one night. So you can get your mom to just love on you and be happy.”
Setting her own path
Over the last couple weeks, Zach Randolph has been interviewed on television almost as much as his daughter. During the ACC Tournament, he made an appearance on the ACC Network, talked to several media outlets and also helped with the T-shirt toss during a media timeout in one of Louisville’s tournament games.
It’s par for the course when your dad is a Tennessee Sports Hall of Famer and the first Grizzly to have his jersey retired. At the same time, Zach wouldn’t have had those moments had it not been for Mackenly showing out. She averaged 12.7 points, 8.0 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 2.0 steals with only two total turnovers in Duluth, Georgia, earning a spot on the ACC’s all-tournament first team.
“Just seeing her do her own thing and setting her own path, I love it,” Zach Randolph said on the ACC’s Nothing But Net show. “… I just tell her, keep being aggressive. Keep being confident and keep playing. I definitely see a lot of little Z-Bo in her.”
Mackenly Randolph jokes that she has a son of her own now — a Yorkie named Adonis that she’s had since her senior year of high school. Unlike Air Bud, this dog likely won’t hit the hardwood. But the legacy that Mackenly is piecing together will keep the Randolph name alive in basketball for a long time.
Reach Louisville football, women’s basketball and baseball beat writer Alexis Cubit at acubit@gannett.com and follow her on X at @Alexis_Cubit.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Mackenly Randolph creating a legacy as Louisville WBB makes NCAA run
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