Matt Nicholson: A big man with big goals

At 7-feet tall, Matt Nicholson is a big man. He has dreams befitting his size.

The incoming Northwestern freshman center says his goal is not just to get the Wildcats back to the NCAA Tournament during his career. He wants to do it multiple times.

"At least once, hopefully four times," he says. "That's the main goal... Winning the Big Ten title. It's something to strive for, and it's achievable. It's a goal I think we can get to."

It's been 87 years since Northwestern last won the Big Ten championship, back in 1933. It remains to be seen whether the Wildcats can do it again while Nicholson is on campus.

But having a record-setting rebounder and shot blocker protecting the rim sure won't hurt.

Nicholson was born to be big.

From the third grade on, Nicholson said that he went to see the doctor about every three months. Every time he visited, the doctor would measure him and find out that he grew another inch.

All those visits stacked up. So did the inches. By the sixth grade, Nicholson was 6-feet tall and towering over his classmates.

Nicholson's father, Mike, is 6-foot-4, but Nicholson says that he gets his height from his mother, Beth, who is 6-foot-1. Beth never played basketball in school, but Nicholson says that she "likes to take credit for my height."

Nicholson has certainly learned how to use that height to his advantage. This season he set every major shotblocking and rebounding record at Clarkston High School, a storied Michigan program that claimed its 14th straight league title in 2020 and won back-to-back state championships in 2017 and 2018.

He is now in the record books for most blocks in a game (14), season (151) and career (222), and most rebounds in a game (28), season (298) and career (544). And keep in mind that Nicholson's season ended on Feb. 25, after their second playoff game, due to the coronavirus pandemic. Depending on how far the Wolves advanced, he had a decent shot at reaching 200 blocks and 350 rebounds on the season.

For the year, Nicholson averaged 16.5 points, 13.5 rebounds and -- get this -- 6.8 blocks per game. All in his first year as the starting center for the Wolves.

Nicholson readily admits, without any irony, that "being tall helps" when it comes to rebounding and shotblocking. But it's much more than that, he explains. He's also a student of the game who has learned the nuances of both skills.

"It's mostly timing," he says. "(Shotblocking) is knowing what a player is trying to do in shooting. It goes hand-in-hand with rebounding. Trying to read what's going to happen.

"I'm kind of good at both."

Despite his size and obvious skills, Nicholson had to wait his turn at Clarkston. He wasn't just handed the starting role when he ascended to the Varsity.

That's what happens when you have two Big Ten big men playing in front of you.

Nicholson spent his sophomore year in 2017-18 as a backup, playing behind seniors Thomas Kithier and Taylor Currie. Kithier, a four-star, 6-foot-8 power forward in the Class of 2018, now plays at Michigan State. Currie was a three-star 6-foot-9 prospect who signed with Wisconsin and has since transferred to Akron.

Sitting on the bench could be a difficult challenge for a 7-footer with his own big-time aspirations, but Nicholson says he took it all in stride. Those two guys were older, more experienced and better than he was as a sophomore.

Plus, he says, "it's all in your mindset." He didn't get much playing time in games, so practices became his focal point.

"Practice was the game for me," he said. "I wanted to show everybody what I can do at practice. I wanted to show coaches why I can play.

"Those are two Big Ten players I went against every day. It was great competition. I know that if I could play with them, I was doing a good job."

Not surprisingly, Nicholson sees himself as a rim protector, rebounder and shot blocker at Northwestern -- though he emphasizes that he doesn't really know yet what head coach Chris Collins wants him to do.

"I can score if I have to, but I don't need points," he said. "If the team wins, the team wins. I will do whatever he wants me to. If he wants me to score 20 points a game, I'll score 20 points a game. If he wants me to give the ball to Miller (Kopp), I'll give the ball to Miller."

Nicholson knows what his strengths are. He also knows that he needs to improve his physicality and strength to bang around under the glass with guys like Iowa's Luka Garza, Michigan State's Xavier Tillman and Illinois' Kofi Cockburn, if those guys opt to return to college.

"It's going to be harder than it was in high school, where everyone was seven inches shorter than me," he said.

Nicholson says "I am 7-foot tall barefoot," but when you ask him for his weight, you get a funny answer. "Do you want it in pounds or kilograms?" he asks.

That's because the scale at the Nicholson's house displays weight in both pounds and kilograms. The pounds function, he explains, stopped working some time ago.

So every time he weighs himself, Nicholson has to convert his weight from kilos to pounds. He's become pretty good at it, as you might expect from a guy who has a 3.67 GPA and scored a 1250 on his SAT.

For the record, Nicholson says that he tips the scale at 104.3 kilos, or 229.9 pounds. He rounds that up to 230.

Like everyone else, Nicholson is hoping that things to get back to normal soon. He has finished school now, so he is doing the best he can to stay in shape.

He wakes up at 7 a.m. every morning and does his conditioning work, running or walking around the neighborhood. Then he shoots for an hour on the hoop in his driveway. Every other day, he lift weights in an effort to make that malfunctioning scale show a larger number of kilos.

Mostly, though, he waits. Just like he waited for a chance to be a starter for Clarkston, Nicholson now waits for the day when he'll be able to play pickup games again. Then he'll wait for the day to report to Northwestern to begin his career as a Wildcat.

Nicholson has some big dreams he is working on fulfilling. He wants to get started as soon as he can.