Quentin Hillsman remembers the moment he knew Nicole Michael had arrived. It was midway through her freshman year, and Michael began establishing herself as a force. All of a sudden, the Syracuse coach started hearing chatter about his star.

‘When you see a player come out on the floor and they point at you and they say, ‘There she is,’ that’s when you know you have a player,’ Hillsman said, referring to Michael.

Three years later, Michael has grown up from fab freshman to SU’s unquestioned leader, making her mark as one of the greatest women’s basketball players ever to wear a Syracuse uniform.

And now she’s on the verge of becoming the leading scorer in the program’s history. Michael and the Orange (16-5, 3-5 Big East) travel to Pittsburgh (12-8, 1-6 Big East) tonight at 7 p.m., with Michael just 18 points shy of the all-time Syracuse scoring record held by Julie McBride (1,605 points from 2000-04).

But if you ask Michael about it, she’ll revert to her usual, unassuming self, focusing on team play over her own individual accomplishments.

‘It means a lot to me,’ Michael said of the record. ‘But I really don’t think about it. I just want to play my game, play hard and let that come to me.’

For Michael, it has all come full circle as she prepares to leave a lasting mark on the program she’s already deeply affected since her arrival.

She was Hillsman’s first prized recruit upon the fourth-year coach’s arrival at SU, turning down offers from top programs like Rutgers, Georgia and South Carolina to join a dismal Orange program.

‘This is a kid who took a chance to come here,’ Hillsman said earlier this season. ‘The most critical thing was that we signed a great player. We knew that great players bring great players, and we saw the domino effect.’

The first domino: junior guard Erica Morrow.

Morrow acknowledged Michael’s influence on her even before she decided to come to the Orange. She has known Michael since the sixth grade, and that relationship was a major part of her decision to spurn offers from – among others – Rutgers and St. John’s and sign with SU.

‘It’s real big to have her going for all these records,’ Morrow said. ‘Slink (Michael) was kind of the beginning. She was here before me, and she was one of the reasons I decided to come to Syracuse.’

It didn’t take her long to make an impression on the court, either. A record-setting one at that.

Michael averaged 17.3 points per game her freshman season, good for the best on the team. She also became the first player in program history to score 500 points in a single season, ending the year at 501.

‘I asked her to do so many things her freshman year,’ Hillsman said. ‘One thing I told her going into the year was that if you’re not looking for the basketball, you’re going to have a problem. She stepped up and really played very hard her freshman year.’

Now, so much has changed for Michael. Morrow describes her as a bonafide leader that comes in every day and tells the team the importance of each practice and each game.

But one thing hasn’t changed: her penchant for scoring. And, three years removed from her freshman season, she’s still setting records and leaving her mark on a program she helped define.

Getting Michael 18 points, though, may not be as crucial as one win. The Orange has lost four of its last five games, including a heart-wrenching 74-73 setback at the hands of No. 3 Notre Dame last Saturday.

Of course, if Michael gets the 19 points to break the record, SU would, most likely, be in good shape. And Michael wouldn’t want it to come any other way.

If there’s one thing the senior has consistently displayed in her four years at Syracuse, it’s her passion for winning. The subject rarely fails to be a topic of discussion for Michael, putting it above anything else.

Said Michael: ‘It’ll be great (if I break the record), but it really won’t mean anything if we don’t win.’

bplogiur@syr.edu

Published on February 1, 2010 at 12:00 pm