1000-point scorer Nick Alikakos’ Heart of a Lion paying dividends for EA boys basketball
Newtown Square – When Episcopal Academy’s Nick Alikakos was a freshman, he suffered a knee injury that sidelined him for half the season. Needing to fill a void during his recovery, Alikakos decided to create a shirt featuring the picture of a Lion with the text Lionhearted underneath the picture.
Enlisting the assistance of his mother, Alikakos took his design to a local business and had t-shirts made that he would sell to fellow students along with neighborhood friends.
“I was bored and wanted make money,” said Alikakos, who was trying to fill a void while he recovered from a knee injury he suffered early in his freshman year. “I decided to create a shirt that I hoped would mean something in my life and my game.”
Since his creation, the term Lionhearted has taken a life of its own simply because it aptly describes not only Nick but also the team.
“That’s a great hashtag for Nick but this team as well,” said coach Craig Conlin. “We talk to them a lot about when adversity arises”, not falling apart, not screaming at each other, not fracturing, but if anything getting closer together. We realize that the sum of our parts together is much greater than just one guy going at it. We know that our strength is in our numbers, so we try to preach that to the kids about or toughness, physical toughness, mental toughness.
“‘Lionhearted’ really sums up Nick and all of our guys,” he added.
With only two points separating Nick from a personal milestone of scoring 1,000- career points, he was pleasantly surprised when he found out fellow students created their own t-shirt with“N1KOS,” a combination of his school-wide nickname and the symbol “1K,” meaning one thousand along the hashtag “#Lionhearted,” which Alikakos and his team often embody.
Friday night was no different, as EA took the court against host Malvern Prep in front of a packed house that included rambunctious student sections from both schools. Although Alikakos knew he was two points away from 1,000, he did not change his game. In fact, the first time he touched the ball he was quick to make the pass to the open man.
With 5:54 remaining in the opening quarter of an eventual nail biting 70-69 victory, Alikakos received a pass in the low block from Matt Woods and made a spin move to the basket and laid the ball in for his milestone bucket and become just the eighth player in school history to reach 1,000 career points.
“It’s huge,” Conlin said of the milestone. “I absolutely love the kid, his competitiveness from the day he walked through our doors–he came up through our middle school. His passing skills, I think, are what impressed me the most; those are two great qualities I think he has. He’s extremely coachable, tough, fearless, and keeps going at it.”
“I think it’s great,” said junior Connor Delaney, who played with Nick in 6th grade AAU and then again in 9th and 10th grade. “He has always been team-first and he just wants to win and will do anything he needs to do to help the team win whether its scoring, passing or rebounding.”
“It means a lot especially since I missed 15 games during my freshman year,” said Alikakos, who finished with 25 points, eight rebounds and three assists before fouling out. “My teammates set me up and put me in a great position to score. It made me feel better after I fouled out when they told me we got this and we will win for you.”
Although EA saw a late six-point lead disappear, it was the lionhearted attitude the Churchmen display that allowed the resilient group to prevail thanks a key block by Kyle Sacchetta that was grabbed by Delaney as the final seconds ticked off.
“That whole situation the way the end of the game played out but also not having Nick who fouled out and having to rely on guys like Connor Delaney, Matt Woods and guys like that was a great character test for us and what we are made of as a program,” said Conlin.
