City of Basketball Love

By Gordie Jones
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Kevin Nowoswiat’s game is a grinding, methodical one, grounded in patience and persistence. Franklin & Marshall’s senior forward is going to get where he wants to go, do what he needs to do.

And never mind that he doesn’t ever seem like he’s in a huge hurry to get there.

A case in point came Saturday afternoon, when the Diplomats hosted Johns Hopkins. The schools are long-time Centennial Conference powers, forever grappling for postseason positioning. And this game was typical of other scrums they have staged over the years, with F&M gouging out a 39-35 lead early in the second half.

Then Diplomats point guard Vakaris Grauslys, a four-year starter and the team’s offensive catalyst, went to the bench with his third foul.

Seemed like a potential turning point, but enter Nowoswiat, a three-year starter himself.

To that juncture he had scored exactly two points, but on the next F&M possession he took a pass at the right elbow and went to work. A half-dozen dribbles took him to the right baseline, as the Bluejays’ Logan Feller shadowed his every move.

Nowoswiat kept his dribble – he would pound the ball 11 times in all on the trip – while spinning toward the lane. And when he squared up to the basket Feller tumbled backwards in hopes of drawing a charge.

There was no whistle, and Nowoswiat launched an eight-foot off-one-leg fadeaway that splashed through the net.

After an F&M stop, it was more of the same. This time Nowoswiat started at the top of the circle and needed six dribbles to get to his spot, about 12 feet from the rim. Again his jumper was true.

Now the Diplomats were up eight and on their way. They would pull away for a 68-54 victory, improving their record to 13-2 this season. Grauslys finished with 15 points, right on his average, while Steve Donahue had 13 and Franklin Jones 11. And the Dip defense, among the best in Division III, limited JHU to 32.1 percent shooting.

Nowoswiat? He scored a season-low six, 10 below his team-leading average, shooting 3-for-6 from the field. He did collect nine rebounds and four assists, and demonstrated once again that good things come to those who wait … as long as they’re strong with the ball.

“He’s steady,” F&M coach Nick Nichay said.

“You can’t speed him up,” Grauslys offered.

Nowoswiat, a 6-foot-4, 225-pounder from Unionville High, was an NABC first-team All-American last year, as well as that organization’s District Five Player of the Year. The Centennial also made him its Player of the Year, as he averaged nearly 19 points a game for a team that went 21-7 while winning the conference’s regular-season and tournament titles.

Through Saturday’s game, he’s at 1,184 career points, 24th on the program’s all-time list. If he continues at his current pace this season, he’s on pace to finish the regular season and one playoff game with around 1,350 points, which would put him above Phil Hoeker (1,341) for 12th place, with Jackiem Wright’s 1,403 next up. He’ll also finish within the top 30 in program history in numerous other categories including 3-pointers, minutes played, rebounds, and more.

He and Grauslys, a native Lithuanian, anchor a team that lost two four-year starters, center Josh Parra and guard John Seidman (Haverford High), from the ‘24-25 club. Donahue, a much-improved sophomore guard, has emerged as a third scoring option, and Jones, a rangy 6-5 junior, is the defensive centerpiece. They also have some size (notably in 6-9 Ukrainian Bohdan Biekeitov, who rotates at center with 6-7 junior Carter Lawrence), and decent depth.

Nowoswiat said there have been and will be “growing pains” for the new group, and welcomes the responsibilities that fall on his shoulders. 

“In terms of production, there's definitely expectations, I think, coming off last year,” he said. “I had a pretty good year, so it's just like, I do feel a responsibility to maintain that production, and then just kind of take it as it goes.”

He arrived at F&M in 2022 with expectations of his own – with, as he put it, the “irrational confidence” many freshmen have, after starring in high school.

“I'm thinking, like, ‘I'm better than these guys; I'm gonna start,’” he said, ‘And then it was a quick wake-up. I realized I wasn't that good.”

He appeared in 20 games off the bench for a team that finished 12-14, and averaged just over six points a night. The last of those outings, a scoreless 12-minute stint in a 71-51 loss at Gettysburg, underscored just how far he had to go.

“I think they tried to isolate me on defense every single time – every single time,” he said. “I mean, I was just completely physically outmatched that game – could not guard anybody, couldn't rebound, couldn't score. It was terrible.”

Nowoswiat (above, left) is all over the F&M record book in numerous categories. (Photo courtesy David Sinclair/F&M Athletics)

That offseason he hit the weight room, adding 15 pounds of muscle after playing at 195. His athleticism improved. His confidence, too.

He was good as a sophomore starter, scoring 11 points a night, and made the leap to stardom last season. Now he and Grauslys are the team’s obvious cornerstones. Nichay called Nowoswiat “a massive weapon” and “one of the hungriest players (he’s) ever coached,” while Grauslys lauded his teammate’s reliability.

“If nothing’s going on,” he said, “we can always just pass the ball to Kevin and let him try to figure it out.”

That’s in the post or on the perimeter, and everywhere in between.

“A lot of times,” Nichay said, “players get really good and they lose sight of the little things that we really try to preach here. Kevin's an elite offensive-rebounding-effort guy, elite block-out guy, elite shot-contest guy. Takes care of the ball. He's a good passer. He does it all. He cuts hard. He practices hard. I mean, you wish you could keep him forever in your program.”

Nowoswiat just wants to make the best of the moments he has left. The entire team does, seeing as last season ended with an 84-50 drubbing at the hands of Catholic in the first round of NCAAs, on F&M’s court.

The Dips opened this season with a loss to Elizabethtown, then reeled off 12 straight victories, two on last-second shots. Donahue nailed a 3-pointer to take down Lancaster Bible on Dec. 30, and four days later F&M found itself in a 69-69 tie at No. 12 Virginia Wesleyan in the closing seconds.

Grauslys, isolated at the top of the key, executed a spin move at the foul line and darted to the cup, only to see his point-blank shot spill off the rim. (“I was pissed at myself,” he admitted.)

Virginia Wesleyan’s Amari Moorer grabbed the rebound, but Jones, who always seems to find himself in the middle of things, interrupted his dribble as Moorer tried to head in the other direction.

So now the ball was free, near the top of the circle. And Nowoswiat was there to collect it.

It had been, in his words, “an intense, grueling game,” one in which he generated 14 points and nine boards. He was dragging. And after Grauslys missed, Nowoswiat was filled with dread.

“My first thought was like, ‘Oh my gosh, we have to go overtime with these guys,’” he said. “I was like, ‘I do not want to play overtime right now.’”

He rendered that academic, burying a jumper from just inside the arc to give F&M a 71-69 victory.

It was his first buzzer-beater on any level, and for once he had had to forego the methodical approach he usually adopts. The one that has served him so well on the court – and, for that matter, in his career. The one that always sees him pushing forward, always grinding, always doing what needs to be done.