Birmingham feels like the center of the college basketball universe this week, and in the middle of all the stars is an awe-shucks hometown walk-on for Auburn with a mean jump shot.

Lior Berman is a senior shooting guard for the Tigers. He played for Mountain Brook High School, winning three state championships with those incredible teams coached by Bucky McMillan. NBA player Trendon Watford was the MVP of those teams. Berman was the other guy.

College basketball stories can’t get much more wholesome than Berman’s journey from walking on at Auburn to the beginning of this NCAA Tournament in the same arena where he won all those state titles. Berman is like the Rudy of basketball except that Berman actually contributes real minutes to Auburn’s rotation and he has worked so hard in college that he might actually be good enough to play pro basketball overseas.

Nine-seed Auburn begins its NCAA Tournament run on Thursday at Legacy Arena with a first-round game against eight-seed Iowa. Tipoff is at 5:50 p.m. The first game of the day in Birmingham is at 11:15 a.m. between eight-seed Maryland and nine-seed West Virginia. Top-seed Alabama plays 16-seed Texas A&M-Corpus Christi next at 1:45 p.m. The day’s late game — the one after Auburn-Iowa — is between one-seed Houston and 16-seed Northern Kentucky at 8:20 p.m.

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Long day of basketball. Long road for Berman that winds up all the way back at home where it all started.

“I had a feeling they were going to put us in Birmingham,” Berman said. “We were watching it, and I just had this feeling. It’s full circle coming back to Birmingham for a high-level game. It’s cool.”

Berman is the ultimate team player because, despite being a senior who plays in the rotation, he’s still not on scholarship. Understand, it is exceedingly rare for a senior walk-on to receive playing time. After four years of college basketball, walk-ons usually move on to better things or get awarded scholarships.

Not Berman, though. Not the Rudy of Auburn basketball. Auburn has operated under scholarship reductions over the last two years due to past NCAA transgressions. Berman has taken one for the team, paying his own way the last two years. Bruce, hook Berman up with some NIL money or something because he’s earned it.

“If not for the scholarship penalty the last two years, Lior would have been on scholarship, so he’s like a scholarship player for sure,” Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said. “He’s a great teammate. He’s grateful for the opportunity he’s been given at Auburn, and he goes to work every day.”

Berman is an industrial design major in his last semester of college. He wants to play pro ball in Israel after that. His grandparents live in Israel, and so when Auburn visited the country in the preseason it was Lior who ended up being the team’s unofficial tour guide. Probably did that for free, too.

“And this is the Dead Sea, y’all. Don’t pee in the Dead Sea.”

Berman, who is 6-4, was a great high school player for Mountain Brook. He had serious game even back then. In his final high school game, the 2019 7A state championship game in Legacy Arena, Berman scored 19 points and had eight rebounds. He also threw down a two-handed dunk near the end that set off the Spartans’ three-peat championship celebration in Legacy Arena.

Berman dunked again on Senior Night this season in a victory against Tennessee that guaranteed the Tigers would receive an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. Basically, whenever Berman dunks in a game, that means the party is officially starting. If Berman throws down against Iowa, the structural integrity of Legacy Arena’s roof will be put to the test.

He might not be on scholarship, but Berman is a fan favorite and now a hometown celebrity and tour guide.

“This is Vulcan. Loves fire. Hates pants.”

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Berman is shooting over 40 percent from 3-point range, which makes him a pretty important player for the Tigers. Auburn doesn’t have many shooters on the team this season and Iowa is averaging 80.2 points per game. That’s a lot of points. The Hawkeyes led the Big Ten in scoring by a large margin. If the game turns into a shootout, then Berman’s jump shot could come in handy.

Players have to make shots in practice before they make shots in a game. That’s one of Pearl’s coaching axioms. For Berman, all he knew was the practice court for two years. He had to prove himself again and again and again just to get an opportunity. That’s the way it goes for walk-ons.

“You do have to earn your respect,” Berman said. “The coaches and the players give everyone a chance, so I’m grateful for that, but you really got to put in the work. You can’t just show up to practice. You have to work in the morning and at night to do the best with what you have, and I feel like I’ve done a pretty good job of that.”

It all came together for Berman in the summer before the 2022 season. Teammate Wendell Green Jr. tells it like this: “Lior wouldn’t be denied.”

“Last year, he got the respect of everybody in the summer just playing,” Green said. “A lot of walk-ons shy away from being on the court, but he was forcing the issue. Like, ‘I got next. Y’all aren’t going to overlook me.’

“So, he got my respect when I first got here. He was one of the better shooters on the team.”

It didn’t come easy. Berman could have played D-II or D-III ball out of high school, but he had to develop his body before he could compete for playing time at Auburn. He loved the challenge, though, and he loved Auburn, so he put in the work.

“Coach Pearl talked about staying ‘right and ready’ at one of the first practices, and you never know when your opportunity is going to come as a walk-on,” Berman said. “It might only be one opportunity every couple weeks, but if you keep staying right and ready and capitalize on those opportunities, eventually it’s going to build up.

“Just doing that consistently through the years, I finally put myself in a position where I can show it out on the court.”

Berman of Birmingham put himself in the middle of his hometown’s big week of basketball, paying his own way to help his team reach this moment. It’s one of the great stories of this NCAA Tournament, and why college basketball and March Madness is such a priceless American treasure.

Joseph Goodman is the lead sports columnist for the Alabama Media Group, and author of “We Want Bama: A season of hope and the making of Nick Saban’s ‘ultimate team’”. You can find him on Twitter @JoeGoodmanJr.