Feb. 9, 2016
By Jerome Boettcher | Subscribe to Commodore Nation
Thanks to a growth spurt that started late in high school and continued into this, his junior season at Vanderbilt, Luke Kornet stands at a towering 7-foot-1.
But he wasn’t always this tall – and Nicole Kornet took advantage on the basketball court.
“It is pretty tough taking a beating from your sister,” Luke says, laughing and shaking his head. “She was better than me for a long portion of my life – longer than it was probably acceptable.”
In Luke’s defense, his big sis was a Top 20 prospect coming out of high school who received numerous Division I offers – starting in eighth grade – before landing at the University of Oklahoma.
Luke isn’t the only Commodore with a sister in college hoops. The sisters of Matthew Fisher-Davis and Joe Toye also play Division I basketball.
Nicole Kornet is sitting out this year after transferring to UCLA from Oklahoma. In her senior season, Jaymee Fisher-Davis leads Liberty University in made 3-pointers. And Joe Toye’s twin sister, Elizabeth, is a freshman forward at Wisconsin.
“It is really cool,” Luke said. “We are sharing a lot of the same experiences and being able to talk about it and knowing everything you go through has definitely brought us closer together.”
Vanderbilt sophomore guard Matthew Fisher-Davis’ sister, Jaymee, is a senior shooting guard at Liberty University.
Matthew Fisher-Davis can relate to Luke Kornet’s pain.
He too had an older sister who happened to be taller than him for most of his childhood. This discrepancy in height often led to heated one-on-one battles between Matthew and Jaymee Fisher-Davis.
“We used to get in fights all the time,” he said, smiling. “I’m not going to lie, she beat me sometimes. It would get real physical. I tried to be physical with her and throw the ball at her. We stopped playing as soon as I got taller than her (in seventh grade).”
For a brother and sister pair that both ended up on the hardwood, they were first drawn to the diamond.
Matthew first picked up baseball when he was five years old and continued playing up until high school. Jaymee was a natural at softball, as the infielder was among the team’s leaders in hitting at Butler High School in Charlotte, N.C.
“She was very talented. She could have played college softball,” Matthew said of Jaymee, who is two years older.
But basketball was where the duo really excelled.
Matthew was named the SW4A Player of the Year after a senior season at Butler when he averaged 22 points, 13 rebounds and five assists. He was flooded with Division I scholarships, including offers from Virginia, Texas and Kansas State.
His shooting prowess attracted college coaches and Commodore fans have already gotten a good glimpse of his long-range accuracy. Last year he led the Commodores with 71 3-pointers and ranked sixth in the SEC with 2.1 treys a game.
Jaymee also collects her points from the outside. She has led Liberty in 3-point shooting the last two years, helping guide the Flames to two NCAA Tournaments in the past three seasons. The senior is on pace to leave the program ranked in the top 10 in 3-pointers made.
“She might shoot the ball better than me, depending on what day it is,” Matthew said. “She was always able to shoot.”
Aside from all those one-on-one sessions out in the backyard that made both better shooters, what can be attributed to the pinpoint accuracy?
Well, their genes certainly don’t hurt them. Their mother, Carolyn, played college basketball at UNC-Wilmington.
“My mom might be the best shooter in the family,” Matthew said.
Matthew Toye laughs at the question.
Two talented children, full of athleticism and both playing Division I basketball – where did these genes come from?
“It did not come from my wife I’ll tell you that,” says Matthew, who played soccer and competed in track at the University of Illinois-Chicago. “She is laughing because she knows that’s true.”
“I did dance and roller skate, but I was truly not interested in basketball, volleyball, soccer – none of that,” Janyth said. “I didn’t influence my daughter because my husband started her the minute she started walking with sports. I couldn’t make her a girly girl. I’m content and happy with who she is and who her dad has turned her into (laughs).”
Twins Joe and Elizabeth Toye are making their parents proud as they embark on their first year of college basketball. Joe is digging in with the Commodores while Elizabeth is a sharp-shooting guard at Wisconsin.
“Our family is blessed,” Joe said. “My parents don’t have to pay for college for either of us so that is just a huge blessing for our family.”
Surprisingly, basketball wasn’t the first sport, or second, the Toye twins played.
Matthew, originally from Nigeria, first introduced his children to the sport he grew up playing  soccer. Then around middle school they gravitated to the track, where Joe in particular excelled.
As a seventh grader, he won the AAU national championship in the high jump. Two years later, in 2011, the summer before his freshman year of high school he won the triple jump by more than two feet with a mind-boggling leap of 44 feet and 2 ¼ inches.
“A lot of seniors in high school, probably 95 percent can’t jump that, he did that in eighth grade,” Matthew said.
As a freshman at Whitney Young Magnet High School, he stunned the field at the uber-competitive Chicago Public Schools championship meet by winning both the high jump and triple jump and advancing to the state meet.
Vanderbilt guard/forward Joe Toye’s twin sister Elizabeth is a freshman at Wisconsin.
Matthew and Janyth recall one particular meet where the track coach had to go pull him out the gymnasium and “kind of force him” to a meet. He didn’t have the right shoes, he wasn’t prepared and all he did was go and break the school record in the high jump.
“That was hilarious,” Janyth remembers.
“He can fly out of the gym. He is extremely athletic,” Matthew said. “In my opinion, he has Olympic potential. To me, personally, I think that is where his talent is. But he wants to play basketball so hey (laughs) that is what he is doing. We are 100 percent behind him.”
Joe says he began to really take basketball seriously in eighth grade. He spent his first couple years at Whitney Young where he played with future Duke star and first-round NBA draft pick Jahlil Okafor. But his career took off when he transferred to La Lumiere School just across Lake Michigan in Indiana. He committed to Vanderbilt his junior year, then closed out his high school career by averaging 18 points and seven rebounds.
Elizabeth took up basketball around the same time and quickly realized it was her best sport (she also played softball, soccer, tennis and ran cross country in high school). Before one game, she surprised her parents when she declared that she was going to score 40 points in a game.
“Keep in mind when she said this she hadn’t scored 20 points in a game,” Matthew said. “I said, ’40 points? Why don’t you just try to score 20 first?'”
She scored 39 points. And she left early because of an injury.
That was just the start – and she eventually eclipsed 40. She scored an astonishing 49 points, a school record, in a game and in just three years became Lindblom Academy’s all-time leading scorer.
“She can flat out shoot,” Matthew said.
From playing soccer together on the same youth teams to chasing championships in track to landing Division I basketball scholarships, the Toye twins have always supported each other. Joe says he talks to his sister nearly every day and they’ve gleaned advice from each other as they go through college together, yet in different places.
As for their parents, they couldn’t be prouder.
“It is a blessing. That is the only way I can describe it,” Matthew said. “It is a blessing to be in that position. They are realizing their dreams. They are realizing their potential. Of course it is still a journey for the both of them but we’re enjoying watching them go through the journey.”
Often times, at least in the early going, Nicole Kornet found herself alone in the backyard.
She had to go grab and prod her little brother, Luke, to come play basketball.
“I was always really competitive and he was such a nerd back in the day,” Nicole said. “He loved school and he still does – he is a (electrical) engineering major. He loved reading and playing video games and loved staying inside. I would always be outside and be like, ‘Luke, please come play with me!'”
Separated by just a year, Nicole and Luke and often found themselves on the same basketball and baseball teams when they were younger.
“I don’t want to say he was in a shadow,” Nicole said, “but because I was the girl on the all guys teams, people noticed that. So Luke was always like, ‘Ugh, I hate my sister. She is always the center of attention!’ It was kind of funny. Now it is flipped around. Luke is 7-1 and he is doing so well. He’s got his time to shine. I love it.”
Vanderbilt junior Luke Kornet’s older sister Nicole is sitting out a year at UCLA after transferring from Oklahoma.
Just 6-foot-2 his sophomore year, Luke hit his growth spurt late and shot up to 6-9 heading into his senior year at Liberty Christian outside of Dallas. Before that, though, his 6-foot-1 sister drew most of the attention as a Top 20 recruit. He was even known as Nicole’s brother.
“It was tough when she was playing shortstop and pitching and batting fourth and I was in right field at the end of the lineup or on the bench,” Luke said, smiling. “It kind of bothered me a little bit because she was always better than me. But it ended up working itself out. I always supported her and am proud of her. We weren’t jealous of each other.
“Once it turned the other way and I was blocking her shot, it was nice to relish the success.”
With their father, Frank Kornet, an All-SEC standout for Vanderbilt basketball in the late 1980s, the Kornet children gravitated toward the basketball court.
Older brother John, 24, played at Division II Ouachita Baptist in Arkansas and Nicole started her career at Oklahoma. During Nicole’s freshman year at Oklahoma, Frank, who was also Luke’s basketball coach at Liberty Christian, would end practice early on game days. He would pack Luke in the car and make the more than two-hour drive up to Norman, Okla., to watch Nicole play.
“I was the younger sibling so I was watching her go through all of it, the entire process  getting recruited and finally choosing a school,” Luke said. “We are always keeping track of each other’s games. We know what is going on and we wish the best for each other. Our whole family bonds over basketball so I think that has been an important part of just growing up and being close as brother and sister.”
