By MARK MOSCHETTI
Seattle Pacific Sports Information
 
SEATTLE – Hit the road for a new adventure?
 
Mehdi El Mardi loves to do that. And whenever he does …
 
… he's a man with a plan.
 
Having grown up in Morocco attending a Spanish school and playing basketball, El Mardi made plans to start college in Spain.
 
So he went to Madrid.
 
 

After two years there, a couple of acquaintances asked what he thought about the possibility of continuing his studies – and his hoops career – in the United States. El Mardi enthusiastically embraced that idea and made plans.
 
So he went to Nashville.
 
As for eventually hitting the road to Seattle Pacific to pursue post-graduate studies and play some more basketball?
 
During the summer of 2019, that was a possibility – but not yet a plan
 
Until one fortuitous Friday in July of that year.
 
"This is early in the morning, and I'm looking at schools and putting together a list of schools that I'm interested in," said El Mardi, who at that time was still in Tennessee, having just completed his bachelor of arts degree in business administration and his bachelor of science in information technology / computer science at Trevecca Nazarene University.
 
"SPU was one of the five schools I was really interested in. A couple hours later, I get this e-mail from Coach (Kegan) Bone (the lead assistant on head coach Grant Leep's staff). "I was like, 'This is insane!' I knew I wanted to come here, and they contacted me.
 
"I was lucky enough that Coach Leep was going on a recruiting trip to Atlanta. He was close to Nashville (just a four-hour drive). He came, we met – and the rest is history."
 
So Mehdi El Mardi went to Seattle.
 
Now, after his first year with the Falcons and helping them post a 22-7 record, the second-year graduate student is getting ready for his final season of action while also continuing to work toward his master's in data analytics.
 
That final season will be delayed somewhat because of the coronavirus pandemic.
 
But the 24-year-old El Mardi isn't letting the current situation drag down his demeanor or obliterate his optimism.
 
"I'm telling you, this is a dream, coming and playing basketball, and last year getting to the regional tournament," he said. "I'm definitely happy with where I am right now. Being able to play basketball and go to college at the same time – I'm very thankful."
 
A HEART FOR HOOPS
Growing up in Rabat, Morocco, it would have been totally natural if El Mardi had devoted his athletic passion to soccer. The sport is highly popular on the African continent, and Morocco, located on the far upper northwest coast, is no exception. The national team has played in five World Cups.
 
"I played soccer for a long time, and I was good at it," El Mardi said. "But I wasn't doing it for my sake. I was doing it because all of my friends were playing soccer."
 
 

In truth, his heart belonged to basketball – and he was good at that, too. In addition to playing for two of Morocco's  top club teams, he also was on the U-18 national team that played in the 2012 African Championships. El Mardi averaged nine points and eight rebounds in that tournament.
 
"In Morocco, there's a lot of great raw talent," he said. "The level of basketball isn't the same as here – it's not as developed as here. It's more of a chaotic style. Here, everything has its own place. You work on every single thing and we focus more on every single detail.":
 
At his high school – Colegio Español de Rabat – El Mardi was voted the best athlete in school history, averaging 20 points and 11 rebounds, and leading his team to four national championships.
 
 

When it was time for college, he chose Universidad Polytécnica de Madrid. While moving to Europe certainly was a big change, doing so fit a particular personality trait of his.
 
"I think I'm one of the people who thrives on change," El Mardi said. "I like new stuff – it keeps me going. It's just trying to adjust to see where people are at and try to meet them at their place and their space and learn about more cultures. It helps me develop this global perspective that I'm really proud of."
 

ONE SEASON, TWO DEGREES – THEN OFF TO SPU
Although sports don't have near the presence on European college campuses as they do in the United States, El Mardi did help the Polytecnica team win the province championship tournament and place third nationally.
 
 

After expressing his willingness to consider playing in the U.S., he was contacted by Trevecca Nazarene. El Mardi arrived in Nashville in 2016 and redshirted that year. In 2017-18, he started all 28 games, averaging 6.8 points and 6.8 rebounds.
 
 

That turned out to be his only season with the Trojans. A coaching change led to several TNU players, including El Mardi, not playing in 2018-19. He put that time to optimal use, completing his double major.
 
But El Mardi knew that he wasn't yet ready to be done studying – or playing basketball. He put his name into the NCAA transfer portal.
 
"I definitely was looking at D2 schools because that's where I think I fit best," he said. "When I looked at the basketball team (at SPU), I said, 'Whoa, this is a great program. Let's look at the academic program.' I found a master's of data analytics, and it was like, 'This is where I think I should be.'"
 
At the same time El Mardi was in search of a school, Falcons coach Grant Leep was in search of an experienced big man.
 
 

"We had a roster spot open, and we were getting into late July. We were being very patient because we wanted to find the right guy," Leep said. "We knew we had a lot of freshmen coming in and we knew we needed a big. We wanted to find preferably a transfer who had some previous experience playing the game.
 
"We were on the transfer portal and saw there was a big guy from Trevecca Nazarene in there," Leep continued. "So we kind of got this wild hair to see if we could find him on the way to Atlanta."
 
Leep made his flight to the Georgia capital, hopped into his rental car, and headed north to Tennessee. He met that afternoon with the 6-foot-8 El Mardi.
 
"It was a long day, but the net result of it was we found our guy," Leep said. "He fit all the boxes we were looking for. He was going to be mature and come in with some experience, and he fit the size requirement that we needed for that position. The degree program is what he was looking for, so that was kind of a draw for him was well, with the reputation that the people in that department have and that the school has.
 
"It was a pretty easy fit."
 
IN ANY LANGUAGE, IT'S BASKETBALL
For El Mardi, coming to the Northwest was just another instance of making a plan and following through on it.
 
"This was definitely my first option," he said. "It's never easy (being a transfer), but people here make it easy. "The team, from the coaches to the staff to the players – they're all great people. Everyone here is awesome."
 
While basketball is an international language, El Mardi can talk about the game five different ways: in English, Arabic, Dutch, French, or Spanish.
 
"Since I was a baby, I've been speaking French, Arabic, and Spanish," he said. "Our dialect back home is kind of a mixture of the three. Then I learned Dutch because I used to spend a lot of summers in Belgium and Holland where I have family. English was the last one I learned." (He said that one also was the easiest, while French was the toughest.)
 
In any dialect, El Mardi delivered. He played all 29 games, with three starts, averaging 3.6 points on .533 shooting from the field (48 of 90) and 2.9 rebounds. He collected 27 boards at the offensive end – the biggest of which came just before the final buzzer to secure an 83-82 homecourt victory against Western Oregon on Feb. 6.
 
"We wanted him to be able to provide some leadership and we wanted him to be able to come in and be ready to play – and he did those things," Leep said.
 
Added El Mardi, "It went pretty well. The challenging part was the beginning. We had a lot of players who didn't play the year before and a lot of players who were new. It was definitely and adjustment. Just trusting each other and being a really jelled and bonded team helped us move forward and forget our (0-4) start."
 
The big forward position was the most competitive on the team last season, as the 6-8 El Mardi and a pair of 6-9 redshirt freshmen – Jacob Medjo and Filip Fullerton – battled for playing time.
 
Turns out that those three were each other's biggest fans.
 
 

"All of us are super-competitive on the court, but off the court, we're really close friends. If there's success for one of us, we're all excited," Fullerton said. "Mehdi brings a lot to the game. One huge thing is every time he's out there, there's a huge energy burst. He grabs all the rebounds and is boxing people out and talking really loud on defense."
 
Naturally, Leep is loving every minute of that.
 
"You could make a very strong case that Mehdi is one of the very best teammates we've had in the time I've been here," said Leep, now in his 12th year with the program and fifth as head coach. "Those three guys are always cheering for each other and always pulling for one another. I don't think it goes that way without high-character guys like Mehdi is."
 
"He's just a home-run of a guy to have in the program."
 
NO GAMES YET, BUT BACK IN THE GYM
Now, if only he and his fellow Falcons can get back into action.
 
The good news is they've been able to practice on the freshly-painted Brougham Pavilion court, albeit only in pods of five at a time to meet pandemic health guidelines. Full-squad practices are still a few weeks away. The hope is that games will start in January.
 
"It was an adventure," El Mardi said of the past several months. "Things got way worse than what everyone thought at the beginning. … We were really lucky to have the team and the coaches that we have here. We were able to have a lot of Zoom (the online meeting app) sessions and go through scouts and plays and just stay in touch with the team, even though everyone is so far apart from each other.

"That was a really big positive for me."
 
El Mardi wanted to return to Morocco this past summer to visit his parents, whom he hasn't seen in two years. Pandemic travel restrictions nixed that plan.
 
So, true to form, he came up with another one, traveling to 15 U.S. states and making multiple hikes.
 
 

"It's one of my goals to visit all 50 states. That's definitely a goal I had in mind when I moved to the U.S., and I'm doing pretty well," he said.
 
With all of his classes online this quarter, El Mardi has an even greater appreciation for the person-to-person contact with Falcon coaches in the gym.
 
"They have definitely helped me discover things that I could do better. But they also helped me know what I do best and to be able to understand those things and help the team as much as I can."
 
Even with all of the current challenges, El Mardi knows he's fortunate to be doing what he's doing.
 
"I wouldn't be here having this conversation if it wasn't for basketball, so I'm really grateful," he said. "Where I come from, basketball is not big. You don't think that you will be able to get here.
 
"I'm definitely glad I had the journey that I had and to be where I am right now."
 
For Mehdi El Mardi, it was all about his willingness to hit the road …
 
… and being a man with a plan.