There’s a dreamlike feeling that engulfs Lori Smith every time she and her husband enter Petersen Events Center.

As they arrive at their seats, getting there early enough to see the end of Pitt’s pregame warm-up, they look for their son, Zach, a junior guard on the team. Before every game, without fail, he looks up, locks eyes with them and waves. It’s a brief moment, lasting no longer than two seconds, but it reinforces a reality that sometimes seems like anything but — her son is a Division I basketball player.

“It’s not surreal once in a while; it’s every time we talk about it,” Lori said. “It’s an unbelievable opportunity he’s been given.”

It’s an understandable sentiment. As her son stands on the court, he does so surrounded by teammates with any number of advantages over him. Many are taller, quicker and more physically imposing. They came out of high school as prospects coveted by any number of major-conference coaches and had thousands of Twitter followers before even arriving on campus. Their respective backgrounds are what most would expect from an ACC basketball player.

Interspersed in that group is a 6-foot-3 engineering major who, not even two full years ago, was averaging 8.5 points per game at a Division III school. Now, Zach not only plays at the Division I level in a conference widely heralded as the best in the sport, but he does so as an equal to his peers, as a scholarship player.

“You’ve got a small-town kid from Smethport, Pa.; never in his wildest dreams do you think you’re going to be playing at Pitt, meeting [Duke] Coach [Mike] K[rzyzewski], meeting [Syracuse coach Jim] Boeheim, let alone getting a scholarship at that level,” said Britt Moore, who coached Smith for two seasons at Pitt-Bradford. “It’s those kind of moments that make it worthwhile.”

A walk-on entering the season, Smith was awarded a scholarship in early January by Pitt coach Kevin Stallings, a move that was perhaps the most rewarding event in an ongoing and unorthodox journey.

After a decorated high school career at Smethport High School, Smith committed to nearby Pitt-Bradford and immediately established himself as a talented and versatile contributor. He and those around him, however, knew his time there would be short. The civil engineering program in which he was enrolled required that he spend his first two years at Bradford before completing his major at Pitt’s main campus.

Moore would half-heartedly talk to him about changing majors and would jokingly wish every player good luck on their finals except for Smith, but he, too, recognized Smith’s inevitable departure was looming. Weeks after Smith’s sophomore season ended, Moore called him into his office and asked if he would be interested in trying to walk on at Pitt, to which Smith answered yes. Moore got in touch with the Panthers staff, sending them game film and contact information.

In early August 2015, Smith received a voicemail from then-Pitt coach Jamie Dixon. Even after listening to it, he was skeptical. In high school, a friend called him from an unknown number identifying himself as the coach at Colorado State, inviting him to visit the school. Smith eventually caught on to the prank and thought that, years later, one of his pals was at it again.

“I called them really quickly and was like ‘Guys, don’t be idiots. I was really trying to walk on down there,’” Smith said. “He was like ‘No, no, none of us did it.’ I called him back and, sure enough, it was Jamie Dixon. I couldn’t believe it.”

The program he had grown up following, idolizing the likes of DeJuan Blair and Sam Young, had offered him a spot as a preferred walk-on.

The life of a walk-on is infamously devoid of glamor, and Smith quickly realized as much, particularly as he tried to fit it in what was already a frenzied schedule. Balancing four hours of practice and workouts with hours of class and homework in a demanding major became onerous.

There were instances in his first semester there, fleeting as they might have been, when he thought about quitting. Through the help of professors and guidance from friends and family, he pushed on.

“I always told the boys to try and don’t ever regret not trying,” Lori said. “I don’t want you to be 50 years old and go ‘Boy, I really wished I would have done that.’ I would rather him be 50 years old and go ‘You know what? It didn’t turn out how I wanted it to, but I tried.’”

Unable to play last season because of NCAA transfer rules, Smith entered this season with a renewed sense of hope. He knew the team had one unused scholarship and, earlier this season, asked director of basketball operations Dan Cage if there was a possibility he could earn it. There was no guarantee it would happen, Smith was told, but, yes, that possibility existed.

The day of Pitt’s Jan. 4 game against Virginia, a few days after fellow walk-on Ryan Seelye had left the team, Smith was called by Stallings to attempt a free throw at the end of the team’s shootaround, telling his guard it was important for him to make it. Smith missed. After some feigned hesitation, Stallings handed him the ball back and told him he had one more chance. He drained it and looked toward his coach.

“Congratulations, you just earned yourself a scholarship,” Stallings said.

The money that comes from a scholarship is valued and important for most any athlete and their family. For Smith, it’s doubly true.

As part of an agreement with his parents, who want him to feel invested in his own education, Smith pays about half of the total bill that includes tuition, books, food and housing (in-state tuition for the Swanson School of Engineering alone, according to the most recent figure on the university’s website, is $18,870). Earlier in his time at Pitt, when he ran out of money, he had to take out a loan of about $11,000 to pay for school.

Smith earned much of his money by working summers and the occasional weekend in high school logging alongside his father, Todd, often waking up at 3:30 a.m. to do so. It was strenuous work, from the sometimes oppressive heat to the constant threat of running into a rattlesnake an hour deep into the woods.

He got paid well for his labor, but more important, it came with an important lesson from his father — you can do this for the rest of your life or you can go to college. By saving most everything he earned, the latter of those two options became a possibility, but not without more work. Last summer, for example, he assisted with a project on I-376 that, when paired with workouts and team pick-up games, kept him away from his apartment from 5:30 in the morning until as late as 9 in the evening.

When he was handed the bill for what he would have paid this semester had he not been on scholarship — about $18,000 or, as he described it, “life-changing money” — Smith couldn’t help but think of not only how far he had come, but of what it meant.

“People on scholarship, they don’t really get that,” he said. “Everything’s free; they’ve got it. They’re going to school for free. When you don’t know how you’re going to pay for a semester, it’s amazing.”

Smith believes his scholarship is most likely just for this semester, particularly as Stallings works to restock a roster that’s losing four of its five leading scorers after this season. Once next fall rolls around, life will, almost certainly, be what it once was.

But for Smith and his parents — who make the three-hour trek from Smethport to see every game they can, hoping their son gets in — the experience has been rewarding and otherworldly.

“He made [the team as a walk-on], and my husband said ‘You know, there’s just no betting against Zach because he’s a great person and you never know what he’ll do,’ ” Lori said. “He made the team, and then he gets a scholarship. He goes ‘What did I tell you? You just don’t bet against Zach because you never know what he may be able to do.’ ”