— Justin McKoy doesn’t remember watching his dad play basketball, but there are some things that are just hereditary.

The way he moves, the way he shoots, the way he smiles -- even his jovial nature -- all strike such a resemblance, that, at times, it’s too much for close relatives to bear. Despite a significant height difference, they can’t help but see the 6-foot-7 senior's late father, Alfonza McKoy, every time the Panther Creek star steps onto the court.

"I hear that a lot," Justin said. "They say I move and act and everything I do is just like my dad."

Justin was just more than a year old when his father died of an autoimmune disease.

Things have not always been easy to the family since then, yet remarkably, basketball has always been there to help.

It's more than just a game to the McKoys.

It's an irreplaceable part of their story since the very beginning, and, with Justin heading to play at Penn State next year, that story is far from over.

Love & basketball

Elizabeth McKoy, then 14-year-old-freshman Elizabeth Nelson, still remembers where she was in Broughton's Holliday Gymnasium.

It was Dec. 28, 1992, and she was on the baseline with her friends watching the action at the annual Holiday Invitational tournament. A boy kept calling down to her from the balcony, but she wasn't giving him the time of day.

But he wasn't discouraged.

She walked back to the lobby with her friends as she tried to push it to the back of her mind. But Alfonza McKoy, a 16-year-old sophomore from Garner who was also there to watch a few games, had raced down the stairs to intercept her path.

And the two hit it off.

"He was really persistent, but he was also very charming and funny,” Elizabeth said. “Justin has a lot of his personality. He's just a very likable guy. He told a lot of jokes and he had me laughing for the rest of the night."

Soon they were dating, brought together by that courtside meet-cute.

But neither finished playing the game that they loved during their high school days.

Earlier in high school, Alfonza had made a costly mistake.

He had gotten into a fight in the Garner cafeteria and, as he would later tell it (and Elizabeth knows plenty of Alfonza's friends who have all said the same), one of Alfonza's stray punches hit the principal who was trying to break it up.

He was nearly expelled but wasn't, yet basketball was done for good.

Elizabeth's playing days ended early also.

Just six months after the two started dating, she became pregnant with the couple’s first child, Jalen. Alfonza and Elizabeth got married in 1996 and had two more children: Jasmine in 1997 and Justin in 2001.

Alfonza, forever mindful about his misstep that cost him his basketball future, worked hard to provide for his family.

But basketball was always near his heart.

If Elizabeth asked Alfonza to run a quick errand, she had better hope he didn't happen to catch a glimpse of a roadside pickup game. It was just like him to pull the car over and get a little run in, all while losing track of time.

"Even after church if we passed by a basketball court and there was a game going on, he had shorts and a T-shirt under his suit and he had shoes in the trunk,” Elizabeth said. “He was ready at all times."

Growing up fast

The family was rocked hard by the news that Alfonza had polymyositis, which affects the muscles and has no cure.

It was 2000 and he was only 26.

Two years later, he passed away.

As he was nearing the end, Elizabeth told her husband not to worry, that she was going to take care of everything.

She was a stay-at-home mom of 3 without a college degree.

Jalen was 8, Jasmine was 5, and Justin was just over a year old.

So Elizabeth set out to do what she had to do for the family.

She began working and later on began taking classes at Durham Tech (she got her Bachelor's of Science and graduated Magna Cum Laude from N.C. Central in 2009) while working a full-time job to continue to provide for them.

There were many mornings where, out of necessity, she left their apartment at an hour when the children were still asleep.

"I had to learn to mature a lot faster than a lot of my other peers, but I feel it made me a better person and it made me build my character,” Justin said. “My brother kind of took on a father-figure (role) as much as he could even though he was still growing up. … My brother watched me a lot and my sister watched me a lot, sometimes I stayed home by myself.”

Until Justin got old enough, Jalen or Jasmine had to make sure Justin was eating his breakfast and packing everything he needed for school. Then, whoever was last out (Jalen’s bus usually came first) would lock the apartment up behind them and board their buses.

All the family had was one another.

"It's been tough, and they've had to grow up a lot faster than most other kids, and I think that's why they're so mature and pretty responsible,” Elizabeth said. “It's a lot to have to put on kids, but they've handled it pretty well."

Basketball was a comfort to the family at this time.

"After he died, we were pretty poor," Elizabeth said. "So one of the free things to do is to go to the park. We started playing more after that."

Elizabeth, now 13 inches shorter than her youngest, was the first to give Justin some key pointers on being a power forward.

"She would always show us her post moves,” Jasmine said, "because she was a post player.”

Making him proud

Ask any of the McKoys, and they'll tell you that those years brought them all to a level of closeness that isn't easily replicated.

You can see it in just how close they all sit together when watching Justin play, as they did in December's John Wall Holiday Invitational, the same tournament (though the sponsor's changed a few times) where Alfonza first flirted with Elizabeth.

They watched as Justin etched the McKoy name in Holiday Invitational history. He made his second straight all-tournament team, which means his name will be twice-listed in the back pages of every tournament program from now on.

It's only fitting.

"Without this tournament, none of them would be here," Elizabeth said.

As the kids have come through high school -- all at Panther Creek -- they proved to be good athletes like their parents.

As they've left Panther Creek and gone elsewhere, they've proven quite successful in other ways.

Jalen, now 24, played football at N.C. Central after graduating from Panther Creek in 2012.

He's now acting in Los Angeles, where he's appeared in commercials for Adidas, the BET Awards, and more.

Jasmine, now 21, who graduated in 2016, is now a junior at N.C. State.

She had chances to play basketball at smaller schools, but just because she opted against it doesn't mean she's done with the sport. She was the Holiday Invitational's official sideline reporter in 2017 and wants a career in sports broadcasting, in part, she said, because she "can't imagine not being connected to basketball in some way."

And Justin, now 17 has excelled in the sport his dad also loved.

But there's more of an impact that he's making. After games, it's easy to spot Justin talking to elementary school-aged kids and handing out fist-bumps, autographs, or high-fives.

"I think (Alfonza would) be really proud. He was nearing the end I promised him 'I've got this. I'm going to take care of the kids don't worry about it.' and that's what I've dedicated the last 15 years to is taking care of them, raising them the way we wanted to raise them," Elizabeth said. "I think he'd be really, really proud to see them succeeding and doing so well and I think he'd be really proud of Justin. Because (Alfonza) messed up his chance and we worked really hard to keep Justin on this path. I think he'd be really, really proud of him."