“There’s just always been a connection between us.”

It began in the fall of 2011 when the two joined the Dayton Flyers women’s basketball team as the only freshmen on the roster.

They came from similar backgrounds in southwestern Ohio: the 5-foot-9 Hoover from tiny Spring Valley Academy in Centerville, the 6-foot-4 Malott from Middletown Madison High School.

Both had turned down bigger-name programs to come to Dayton — Malott had offers from the likes of Notre Dame and Purdue; Hoover had drawn interest from Stanford — because they knew their families would be able to more easily follow their games.