Zakai Zeigler, Armoni Zeigler March Madness brothers matchup started on Long Island hoop

CHARLOTTE, N.C. − Charmane Zeigler woke up late and Zakai Zeigler was nowhere in the house.

It wasn’t hard to find him. She heard the bouncing ball and located her 10-year-old son in front of the house.

Zakai was practicing his free throws on his prized hoop while he waited for the bus to pick him up. The net dangled toward the ground, hanging by a thread from the rim after thousands of shots from Zakai and his half-brother, Armoni, tore through it. Stones and bricks weighed the bottom down, the water weight container cracked and useless.

Charmane exhaled, but she should have known. The brothers were often found by the basketball hoop.

“I watched these little boys when this was their dream,” Charmane said. “Anybody that knows them back home will pretty much tell you if you Zakai or saw them together, they had a ball with them.”

The Zeigler brothers are a long way from that wrecked hoop in Long Island. They’re geared up to face off in the NCAA Tournament with Zakai starring for No. 2 Tennessee basketball (24-8) against Armoni and No. 15-seeded Saint Peter's (19-13) on Thursday (9:20 p.m., TNT).

It's a dream come true for the brothers and it started on the end of that street in Brentwood, New York.

Zakai Zeigler, Armoni Zeigler grew up playing basketball together

Zakai and Armoni always asked. Every Christmas, every birthday, every day. They wanted an in-ground basketball hoop in front of the house.

They got a portable hoop when Zakai was 8 years old and Armoni was 6. Charmane spotted the hoop on discount at Walmart across from her job at Rubin and Rothman Law in Hauppauge. It didn’t fit in her Chrysler Sebring so she convinced someone with a truck to drive it to their house and the boys’ lives flipped.

“Just to be able to go outside and play and not to have to run the park or go look around … that was big for us,” Zakai said.

Zakai and Armoni are half-brothers by birth. They share a father and a last name — and the belief that half-brother is a label not a reality.

“We don’t do the half-brother thing,” said Ryan O’Malley, Armoni’s stepfather. "They are brothers. They look at themselves as brothers. There’s no half-brother about it.”

They were raised together and around each other, always welcome at each other’s places. They often were at Charmane’s when they were young. They were thick as thieves and welded together. The home was full of laughter. Zakai was the leader, the older brother and a mature presence even as a child. Armoni was the playful one of the two.

Armoni always wanted to be like Zakai. If Zakai had a No. 16 jersey, Armoni wanted one. If Zakai had a blue bike, Charmane would get a call from Armoni’s mom, Tia, asking where to get a blue bike for Armoni.

Charmane once sent Zakai to timeout for a half-hour in his room. Armoni went with him.

“I’m like the purpose of this was to separate you two, but OK,” Charmane said.

Basketball was the superglue for the two. They had hoops in front of both homes. They would shoot for hours. Charmane would call them to come in for dinner. They never came in on the first call and they’d sneak back out to play more after dinner — if they came in at all.

“She couldn’t drag us inside,” Zakai said.

How the Zeigler brothers found ways to play during 2020

Naturally, there was a hoop in front of Armoni’s house to mirror the setup at Zakai’s. But that hoop lacked a backboard, a causality of dunks and general destruction.

“They would be out there for hours on the hoop with no backboard playing on it,” O’Malley said. “It looked like someone punched it off the back or ripped it off.”

Zakai stayed with Armoni's family for a couple of months during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. He was welcomed with open arms, matching Armoni's experience years prior and calling Tia "another mom to me." They couldn't order new parts for the backboard with the world shutting down and so began the search for a place to play.

They went to nearby Bolden Mack Park often as the rims hadn’t been taken down. The blue-and-red court had eight rims and plenty of space to play with the world shutting down. O’Malley brought cones for drills. They played for hours every day.

Then one day a woman told them to go home because of the pandemic and the next day the rims were gone.

Zakai knew of another spot, a secluded court behind Brennan Middle School in North Babylon. His cousins lived down the street from the school and used it to settle arguments over who was better growing up. The court was a well-kept secret — an if-you-know-you-know setting that bred games as big as 5-on-5.

“It was like a rim, no nets,” Zakai said. “Just concrete and hoops.”

The brothers played there until they eventually found an indoor place to play at a school in the Bronx. They were always together once again, bonded as brothers in basketball pursuing their dreams.

The dream matchup between Tennessee basketball and St. Peter's

The inseparable brothers played together plenty of times growing up — in the road, at the park, on teams in tournaments. They haven’t played against each other, which injected intrigue into the buildup to Sunday.

Tennessee was lined up to be a No. 2 seed after being the SEC regular-season champions. Saint Peter’s grabbed a bid by winning the MAAC title game, putting it position to be a No. 15 seed.

Then it happened. The Vols were announced, the Peacocks were named as the opponent, and Zakai called Armoni immediately.

JOURNEY: Trains, sacrifices and a last chance: Zakai Zeigler's journey to Tennessee basketball

“I hate that I got to whoop you like this, but it is crazy we get to play against each other,” Zakai told his brother.

This is how it goes and always has gone with Zakai and Armoni. Zakai is convinced Armoni will never admit how good his older brother is at basketball. Charmane said that is the case if Zakai is in the room. Armoni would be quick to defend his brother in any room he is not in.

The brothers are different. Zakai is a 5-foot-9 junior defensive superstar with a sweet 3-point shot. Armoni is a 6-foot-5 freaky freshman athlete who had a viral dunk early this season. He idolized Ja Morant growing up and Zakai used to throw lobs to Armoni to practice dunking.

Zakai said Armoni can basically fly. But that is all he was willing to give his younger brother.

“He is 6-5,” Zakai said. “That is what he does better than me.”

The days since the game was announced have been hectic. The Vols know Armoni because he came on Zakai's official visit in 2021 and spent a week in Knoxville last summer. Family group chats are buzzing and texts are relentless. There was talk of a renting a party bus to bring as many people from Long Island to Charlotte as possible. It’s the talk of Amityville, O’Malley said. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime moment beyond any script could compile.

They’re two boys from Long Island playing against each other on the biggest stage in college basketball. They’re the two boys who used to shoot for hours on the street dreaming of this moment.

They’re brothers.

“That is my boy,” Zakai said. "That is my brother.”

Mike Wilson covers University of Tennessee athletics. Email him at michael.wilson@knoxnews.com and follow him on Twitter @ByMikeWilson. If you enjoy Mike’s coverage, consider a digital subscription that will allow you access to all of it.

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Zakai Zeigler, brother Armoni living dream with March Madness matchup