I'm not usually one to evaluate drafts the day after they occur; I try to leave that to those who enjoy claiming to know things they couldn't possibly know. However, I can't help but think the Orlando Magic made the right choice by selecting power forward Andrew Nicholson 19th overall thursday night. You see I had the extreme pleasure of attending St. Bonaventure University with Nicholson this past year and have seen firsthand the combination of skill, footwork, and intelligence this guy brings to the floor. There may be no other player in this draft who has meant more to the people that cheered for him; no one who made a more a positive impact on his fanbase.
For those who don't know St. Bonaventure is located in a remote Upstate New York town called Olean. On top of being in the middle of no where, the school holds just under 2,000 under-grad. As the stereotype goes, this is what makes it a "drinking school." Despite it's size and location St. Bonaventure is and has for a while been known for being the best basketball program in the area. The high point being a final four appearance in 1970 led by future Hall of Fame center Bob Lanier. However recently had been hit by hard times. After a near upset over Kentucky in the 2000 NCAA tournament, contraversy struck the town. In 2003 transfer student Jamil Terrell was found to have been playing illegally. He had not received the equivalent to an associates degree at the Georgia community college he attended. Instead, he was found out to have only received a welding certificate while administrators at the school looked the other way. The NCAA came down hard with sanctions and essentially ruined the next five or so years for the program.
To an outsider a few years without the basketball team being very competitive would be seen as the extent of the damage. However this scandal cut so much deeper than that. Western New York winters were tough enough to survive for the state's poorest county while there was Bonnie basketball to be watched. Now that the team was decimated from the scandal, the town was devastated. Then, of course the economic recession hit just as the Bonnies were suffering through another losing season.
By the time Andrew Nicholson arrived on campus as a wide eyed (and giant) freshman in 2008, the Bonnies had become an afterthought in the minds of college basketball fans. As I said before Bonaventure HAD been hit by hard times. No one was a bigger component in changing that to the past tense than Nicholson. He made an impact right away and it wasn't long before he was starting games and making an impact in the Atlantic Ten. He was easily the best player on the team already as the fanbase began to be energized for the first time in years. Over the next two years he began to make a name for himself as one of the more underrated big men in the college game all while earning incredible grades with the rigorous schedule of a physics major. As Nicholson improved, so did the team as the finally started to become competitive again and re-established themselves as the premeir team in Western New York.
While coming to visit St. Bonaventure on my college hunt, I began to realize how big of an advertising tool Nicholson was for the school. They made sure we knew how good he was and then described how with only about 1800 undergrad, St. Bonaventure was like a family. Only if one of those family members was going to be in the NBA. Eventually I chose to go there and all the talk the first few weeks was of this Nicholson fellow. Those from outside the area didn't know much about Nicholson and needed to be filled in on who he was. At that point the talk was that he may be a mid second round draft pick and the Bonnies might make some noise in the Atlantic Ten and maybe had the slightest chance to be a fringe tournament team. However it was going to be tough to make the tournament without winning the Atlantic ten and it was going to be tough to win the Atlantic ten while powerhouse #16 Xavier still existed. Despite all this, the students went into the home opener against Cornell with all the optimism of true Western New York fans. After easily dismantling Cornell, the Bonnies suffered a heartbreaking loss at the #26 Cleveland state. Then, after an upset loss to lowly Arkansas St. at home, the Bonnies fell to 2-3. It seemed as though the sky was falling and the season was over. There was no way that the Bonnies could make the tournament now, Nicholson's senior year was going to be a waste. To make matters worse, he wasn't impressing anyone with his play early on. However, both of these problems began to be resolved with a 7-3 run through Christmas break. That was until they played at Xavier and were beaten handily 77-64. The game was a swift reminder of the level at which major Division basketball was played at. The Bonnies made up for the loss with a 44 point beatdown on Fordham the first weekend back from winter break. All seemed to be well in Bonnie-land.
However Nicholson's stock would begin to fall again as he fouled out in an all too close overtime win over lowly Rhode Island and again in a blowout loss at St. Louis. After a loss at UMass, the Bonnies fell to 12-9 and didn't appear headed toward any kind of post season play. But this all changed on Saturday February 11th. This would be the first home game I missed all year as I was on a road trip to Cornell. The Bonnies were slated to take on Duquesne who (somehow) had beaten them by 14 points at their house earlier in the season. Nicholson made sure this type of embarassment didn't happen again by single-handedly out-rebounding Duquesne. All in all he finished with 21 points and 23 boards; the most by any Bonnie since Bob Lanier over forty years ago. Not the best game to miss.
As Nicholson went, so went the Bonnies; this would become the pattern for the rest of the season. The next week #19 ranked Temple came to Bob Lanier court and barely escaped with a 76-70 victory after leading all game. The Bonnies would go on to four of their last five with Nicholson putting up around 30 points, 12 rebounds, and 5 blocks seemingly every night. It was around this time that he also became utterly unstoppable from three point land. In a home game against Rhode Island the star center went 15-17 shooting with 13 rebounds as doomed opposing coach Jim Barron could only look on in disappointment as his former home crowd betrayed him with chants of "unemployment." Despite the late season run; many were still talking about the Bonnies going to the CBI with the slight chance of appearing in the NIT. Atlantic Ten Championship weekend would change all that.
Due to the late season run, the Bonnies earned a first round bye. After the first round of action, they discovered that they were slated to play St. Joes on friday afternoon. The same St. Joes team who came to Olean and fought to two overtimes beofore leaving with a loss just a few weeks before. Students rushed back from class to catch the early 2:30 tip-off. After a back and forth game featuring many lead changes, the Bonnies prevailed by the slim margin of 71-68. The next day they faced off against UMass who had shocked Temple the day before in addition to beating the Bonnies handily earlier in the year. This game was not televised and it seems as though each student has their own tale of how they were able to watch the game(mine is likely the best but i'll save that for a later date). After taking a 20+point lead nearly halfway through the second half, the Minutemen game roaring back. We watched helplessly as the Bonnies lead dwindled to only two points with just minutes remaining. Amazingly, they were able to come out on top with an 84-80 victory that set off celebrations all accross campus. The Bonnies were now going to have to faced off against big, bad Xavier the next day.
Only a select few had made the trip to the first two games of the tournament, but on saturday it seemed that half the school was getting up and leaving to go to the championship game. This was not like a big game at UNC or Duke; there were no thousands of other students with other interests. There was no other interests to hold in the area; in winter drinking and basketball is all that matters. The entire campus was already buzzing despite the fact that likely a quarter of it's students were away to cheer on the team.
Sometimes in sports, there are match-ups that are just destined to happen. Before the season it seemed as though the only way the Bonnies were going to be able to make the tournament was to go through Xavier. This, at the time, seemed like an impossibility. Xavier was pre-season #16 in the nation and had what was supposed to be the best player in the Atlantic Ten (Tu Holloway). But much of this aprehension disappeared during the season. Xavier was involved with an ugly brawl against Cincinatti that cost them some of their best players for a few games, they quickly fell out of the top 25 and finished third in the A-10. Despite the fact that Temple and St. Louis were better teams, they had to lose. Xavier and St. Bonaventure was a match-up that had to happen. This was going to be much different then their game two months prior. This game would not be played at Xavier, this would be played at a Neutral site(basically meaning a home game for the Bonnies). Stars such as Holloway started to be seen as human and the Bonnies may have realized they had nearly the same record as Xavier. The biggest change was not just that Andrew Nicholson was now clearly the best player in the Atlantic Ten, it was that he knew it.
The game tipped-off at one on a sunday afternoon. Xavier never stood a chance. Right from the get-go Nicholson dominated them inside and out. He scored 26 points, 14 rebounds, and tied a St. Bonaventure record with 8 blocks. He also displayed his ranged with two three pointers and 10-10 foul shooting. The Bonnies were in control all afternoon and despite a slight run by Xavier in the second half, they were never in danger of losing. While Nicholson seemed to have figured out his foul problems by this time, Xavier played to the reputation as criminals. It seemed like they were going after Nicholson every chance they got as if they knew they had no chance of stopping him. Thi seemed to abruptly end one play as Nicholson came down with clear posession of the ball on a rebound. Holloway attempted to grab the ball late and was promptly dropped to the ground. Nicholson looked over him as to say "damn right I'M the best player in the A-10, deal with it." For me it was the high point of the weekend. Just a few minutes later the clock ran down to zero and the Bonnies were Atlantic Ten Champions. Those who were left on campus went wild as those down in Atlantic City made it clear who the champions were.
That night the the Bonnies returned to campus by bus at around 2:30 am. The word started to get out that students would be out greeting the team and by the time they got back there were a few thousand screaming, chanting, excited students waiting. Some were seniors who remembered the days when basketball was an afterthought while others were freshman who were just glad they got to have such a great experience so soon. As coach Mark Schmidt walked off the bus he was handed a Keystone by a student which he proceeded to drink. Unknowingly he became the greatest combination of what St. Bonaventure was all about, drinking and basketball. As I looked around I began to notice a few townies from Olean were present and I thought about how important this must be for them. After years of darkness, it was Andrew Nicholson who pulled this basketball program out of the hell it had been in back to light.
At some point on suday, the selection committee decided the Bonnies would face Florida State the next friday in the first round. Against the Seminoles, the same Seminoles that defeated both UNC and Duke twice this year, the Bonnies led nearly the entire game. Despite Nicholson's 4-5 three point shooting and seven boards, Florida St. prevailed 66-63 as DaQuan Cook missed two shots to end the game. However this is not what mattered, what mattered was that Nicholson put a small town on his back and ressurected it's basketball program all while maintaining one of the best GPA's in his class and being friendly to everyone he came accross.
Thursday night the Orlando Magic gained a champion, someone who performed under extraordinary pressure. Sure leading a national program such as Duke or Kentucky involves a great amount of pressure. A choke or just not being at the top of your game can cause a fanbase of millions to villify you for the entire offseason and in some cases, beyond that. However it takes a who different type of person to perform under the pressure that Andrew Nicholson did. To be given the responsibility of changing the prevailing mood of an entire town and to give them their livelihood back is no small order. Even if he turns out to be better than expected and leads Orlando to multiple championships; Andrew Nicholson's greatest accomplishment will always be giving the small town of Olean it's life back.
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