APPLETON, Wis. — Jamie Nikitas will never be mistaken for “Pistol” Pete Maravich. There’s no long hair or floppy socks, but, just like the Pistol, the points are piling up for Lawrence University’s star guard.
Nikitas is having the greatest scoring season in Lawrence’s long basketball history and ranks among the top five scorers in all of NCAA Division III.
“I never thought of myself as a great scorer,” said Nikitas, who is averaging 26.9 points per game, good for fourth in Division III.
“At the beginning of the season, the first Ripon game gave me a lot of confidence that I could go out there and score that much. I’ve been playing aggressively and getting to the hoop and getting to the free-throw line.”
Nikitas scored what was then a career-high 34 points against Ripon College in the third game of the season and that propelled him forward. He has six 30-plus point games this season, including a career-best 40-point effort at Carroll University on Jan. 12. Nikitas also has been to the foul line 169 times, the second-highest season total in school history.
“From an individual ability standpoint, Jamie is up there near the top (in Lawrence history),” Lawrence coach Joel DePagter said. “I don’t want to say he is the tops, because there’s been a pretty good list. I know Jamie would trade all of this for more wins and a trip to the conference tournament.”
With a smaller roster this season after massive graduation losses over the past two years, DePagter knew the onus would be on Nikitas to perform. The Lawrence coach said before the season the Vikings would go as far as Nikitas could take them, but even he didn’t foresee this type of performance.
“He can go from spot A to spot B in the blink of an eye,” DePagter said. “He reminds me a little bit of myself. He’s a bit of risk-reward guy. I can relate to that because coach (John) Tharp used to yell at me quite a bit. We’re not going to tone him down. He has to be Jamie Nikitas.”
Nikitas just passed DePagter on Lawrence’s career scoring list and enters play this weekend in sixth place with 1,287 points. Just like DePagter was as a player, there’s more to Nikitas than just points.
“As a senior and my last go-round, I really want to be able to do all I can do,” Nikitas said. “If that means scoring 34 points, great. If that means dishing out six assists, great. Just figuring out what I need to do and adjusting night to night.”
In addition to leading the team in scoring, Nikitas also paces the team at 7.1 rebounds per game, 3.4 assists per game and 2.4 steals per game. He ranks in the top 10 in all of those categories in the Midwest Conference, including leading the league in steals.
“Jamie’s hard to describe. He’s got great basketball IQ,” DePagter said.
“He plays at a different level than most kids play. It has nothing to do with all the combine stuff, vertical jump, bench press, shuttle run, that stuff’s irrelevant to Jamie. He just plays hard.”
With just six games left in the regular season, Nikitas is staring down the end of his college basketball career. Nikitas, who would like to take a shot at playing professionally in Europe, believes he has done all he can for the Vikings but is sad to see it end.
“I don’t know if there’s anything else individually (that I want to do). What’s going to come is going to come. I just want to enjoy competing being with my teammates and the coaches,” Nikitas said.
“Just really enjoying being on a college basketball floor a last few times and the atmosphere at Alex. It’s not something everyone gets to do so I’m just really savoring all of it.”
Nikitas said he doesn’t think about the record book when he’s playing and seems amazed at where he stands in Lawrence history. Nikitas has the chance to join three-time All-American Chris Braier as the only player in Lawrence history to rank in the top 10 in career points, rebounds, assists and steals.
“He’s doing something that no one has done in a program that has had some pretty amazing players. I would have liked to have played with the kid, that’s for sure,” DePagter said.
“I think it’s pretty safe to say that he will go down as one of the greatest players to ever play at Lawrence.”