Have not gotten to as many games this year as I would like....so just want to see what people think about Matt.....after 2 years is he just not ready to even do spot minutes against some of the big BIGS in the B10? I mean if Ryan Young was 3 inches taller and 20ibs heavier he would be the man...But size wise it seems like Matt Nicholson has the size......what is the issue?
Matt Nicholson ?
- Thread starter loyolacat
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Obviously, he is a foul machine on defense. But I think there real offensive potential there. He is averaging 19 and 14 boards per 40 (Nance is 22 and 10; Young is 21 and 10). I hope he figures it out.
At bare minimum , he has two better guys in front of him. While he did OK in a couple appearances against BIG opponents, there was the one where he had 3 fouls in like 3 minutes
No one is saying he does not have potential. You cannot teach height. That said, Bigs such as him are notoriously slower to develop and he has to be able to get that body under control before he can get into a position to contribute. You can tell he is working on it but just not there yet
Maybe a little game time before the Big Ten season would have helped with the fouls.
Lets see... whats the actual record?
Nicholson played against Michigan State and was dominant. 13 minutes, 5 points, 3 offensive rebounds, 3 defensive rebounds, 3 assists, no turnovers. 4 fouls.
He played against Steven Crowl and Wisconsin and got two bogus fouls, one of which was on a poster-quality rejection of a Crowl dunk attempt.
He played against Zach Edey for about 3:30 in the first half and we got outscored 8-7. Nicholson had 4 points, no fouls, no turnovers.
He played about 90 seconds against Kofi Cockburn and had 2 of our 4 points. We won the segment 4-2. He picked up 3 fouls, 2 of which were legit. When Kofi tried to block his dunk attempt, Kofi took a shoulder to the mouth. Much better than what Ryan Young has to absorb.
The second time against Cockburn, he defended the post as Kofi lost the ball trying to go up 2 feet from the basket. He set a good screen and assisted on a Ty Berry 3. Illinois then hit a 3. Nicholson drew a foul on Cockburn trying to get an offensive rebound. Nicholson missed the front end of the 1 and 1. Collins benched him. That segment went 3-3.
I will take his physicality for as long as he can stay on the court, giving Young a rest, giving Collins the courage to play Young and Nance together.
If those quick fouls put us at a disadvantage (pushing us to where opponent is in the bonus), not sure how you can keep him on the court. A lot depends on the matchups and not a lot of favorable ones for him at this point
The only way he will learn to defend those guys and get away with stuff is to play. I’d play him until he fouls out because he clearly can give you offense.
He needs to get better fast, but I am excited about his offensive skills.
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I'm also pleasantly surprised at how well he moves, he's definitely not a stiff. And he's got an aggressive mind set, much better than the tentative frosh we glimpsed last year. He deserves more playing time.
Nicholson could be really good next year if he can work on his shooting and develop more offensive moves. I've seen it happen before with big men at NU (See Bill Woislaw, Jim Pitts in the 60s).
Woislaw was my fraternity brother and Jim Pitts was a good friend. We had lots of BB players in the house, including Rich Falk. Were you at NU in the 60's as well?
Did you just say he was dominant against Michigan State? Come on. I know this board has a love affair with Matt Nicholson, but on what planet was that performance "dominant"? He gave good minutes and was a spark. He was a part of the reason we won that game, but to say he was dominant is completely ridiculous.
If Collins gave him a few more minutes per game (maybe a short 2-4 minute stint each half) I'd be okay with that, but if we have a healthy roster, anything more than that is too much at this point. I may have given him a little more time against Illinois instead of having Nance down low on Kofi, but in most games, he is getting the time he should be at this point.
He has potential, but he still has to develop a lot more and become more polished on both sides of the floor. Another offseason might be what he needs to make that step, but he isn't there yet and light years behind Young and Nance.
What are the 60's?
JK.
I was at NU in the late 80s. Shon Morris, Walker Lambiotte and Jeff Grose carried the Cats to a bunch of <10 win seasons under Bill Foster.
Well Johnny...
First of all, the board does not, in any way, have a love affair with Big Matt. There are some of us who are clued in to what he can do for the team. His detractors vastly outnumbered his supporters. Even his supporters agree that Young should be the starting center and that Nicholson should be his backup, giving Nance the opportunity to dominate at the 4 position, where he belongs, while improving our rebounding.
Anyhow, Collins buried Nicholson on the bench and gave him almost no playing time in the pre-season games. A few of us expressed that Collins was making a mistake by doing so. Collins refused to play Nance and Young together, so one of them was always in the game, working on "whatever" against weak opposition.
So when Nance got injured and Williams got Covid, Collins was literally forced to do what he should have been doing all along. Young had to start at center and Nicholson had to be his backup. Nicholson had not played in a game in 25 days. Young responded with one of his best games and Nicholson showed the value of his physicality in his 13 minutes. We were without Nance AND Williams and we won on the road. Beran played 33 minutes and Barnhizer played 7 minutes at the 4 position.
"Somehow" we outrebounded MSU 40-35.
We outscored MSU 30-21 when Nicholson was playing. (we won 64-62). Obviously, a little math tells you that we scored 2.3 points per minute with him on the floor. When Young was at center, we scored 1.3 points per minute. You might say we shredded MSU when Nicholson was out there.
Nicholson had 3 offensive rebounds, 3 defensive rebounds, 5 points and 3 assists in 13 minutes. How is that not dominant? That projects to over 15+ points, 18+ rebounds and 9+ assists per 40 minutes. By comparison, Robbie Beran has 4 assists in 330 minutes of conference play.
So Collins is never going to change his mind about playing Young as his starting center. He's been wrong for 2 years, why change now... But maybe somebody can tell him he'd be a genius if he found a way to pair up Nicholson and Nance at some point. It would probably work.
Oh, and if you only play Nicholson against Cockburn and Edey, we already know that those guys are better than he is. Give him a shot against somebody who isn't bigger than him. What do you have to lose?
Yes, and I recall the heartbreaking collapse of the '66-'67 team which led the Big Ten with a couple weeks left in the season. NCAA regional was at McGaw that season too. Oh what might have been!
I appreciate you using stats to back up your argument, but you are using one game where he played 13 minutes against a team that doesn't have a high quality big man as your reasoning. You are using small sample sizes and using that for how he would do over 40 minutes, which I think is a major stretch. Yes, we won that game. It was awesome and a fantastic victory, but thinking that playing without Nance and playing Nicholson more would make us a better team (which you may not be totally implying, but you are dancing around it), over an entire season is so ridiculous it's not even a topic that should be discussed.
We will just have to agree to disagree on this one. I am using my eyes to see what I think is pretty obvious and that is that Nicholson is a hard working, plus effort player that has upside, but has not reached it yet and still has a ways to go. I don't think any additional playing time would have made him all that much better by now. Sure, the experience would help, but it's not like it would be a massive difference right now. He just needs more time to refine his game. As I said, I would be okay with him getting a little more time per game (maybe averaging 5-8 minutes per game with Young playing about 30 minutes per game at the 5 spot so that Nance can play that stretch 4. I'm with you on that thinking).
And for the record, I like the kid. I'm not ripping him. He's trying hard and brings a lot of effort and energy when on the floor. You can tell he's put a ton of time in not only in the gym but also on the practice court with our coaches. And as we all know, he's a really big guy, which is a plus. I don't believe he should be seeing a lot more time this year though, and for me personally, it's pretty clear cut.
No offense, but the reason I focused specifically on the MSU game is because you wrote...
"Did you just say he was dominant against Michigan State? Come on. I know this board has a love affair with Matt Nicholson, but on what planet was that performance "dominant"?"
I'm glad you see the positives of Big Matt. It sounds like you are on board with what a few of us said before the season started. "Young should start at the 5. Nance should start at the 4. Nicholson should come off the bench for Young, playing 5-10 minutes a game. Beran should back up Nance."
Unfortunately, Collins prefers Nance with Beran, leaving Nicholson as a wasted asset.
Same page for the most part. I just think 5-10 minutes should be the max for him at this point and there are some matchups against smaller teams where he’s probably not needed at all this season.
I think Nicholson could do well against smaller teams. I really would like to see Nicholson and Nance for a few minutes against Penn State and Minnesota. Their bigs top out at 6'9" 240.
Iowa is even smaller.
I'd be looking to aggressively seek a size advantage against those teams.
As opposed to passively seeking to reduce our size disadvantage (Purdue, Illinois).
If we play small (Nance with Beran) we are playing right into their hands.
So Young with Nance and some Nicholson with Nance. We should kill them in the paint.
When Nicholson is in the game I definitely pay more attention out of curiosity. It's clear that Buie is not afraid to drive and dish to Nicholson. A few passes have been too low or fast for MN but he's trying to get it to him.
If I were Collins, I would send Nicholson into the game vs. Purdue with very clear instructions for Beran to whisper into Edey's ear "Man, you should see what Nicholson looks like when he only wears his tighty-whiteys." I think Edey would be made very distraught by that.
I graduated in 1965 and was in law school at Pitt at the time, so I didn't have a full appreciation for the "collapse" at that time. Must have been tough to swallow.