Launching into the void
An empty space is meant to be filled anyway, right?
On March 23rd, 2023, Kansas St. was tied with Michigan St. at 92 all in overtime with roughly a minute to go for a trip to the Elite 8 and a trip to not go home. Markquis Nowell dribbled the ball up the court turned to Isiah Thomas, a former basketball great for the Detroit Pistons, and said “Watch This.”
Nowell inched further up the court and then appeared to argue with Jerome Tang, Kansas State’s basketball coach, on the play call. While in the process of arguing with Tang, Nowell would throw a no-look alley-oop to Keyontae Johnson to take the 94-92 lead. This would be Nowell’s 18th assist of the night and leave the crowd in a frenzy. The crowd double checking what they had just seen to see if their eyes were truly deceiving them.
On that pass, Nowell would tie Mark Wade for the most assists in the NCAA tournament game. He would later get 19 and break the record on the game winning bucket.
Nowell stole the nation’s heart. He would operate on the court with the ball on a string like a yo-yo only placing it where his teammates could reach it. He was a quarterback on the court with his passes. A spatial genius some may say. Seeing lanes and avenues that very few can see and timing where his teammates will be down to the millisecond. After the game, everyone wanted a piece of Nowell, they wanted a piece of history.
Markquis Nowell has become the face of march madness and of college basketball. However, it wasn’t always that way. Nowell is in fact 5 feet 8 inches and 160 pounds.
Nowell’s Path
5 foot 8 inches and 160 pounds. Some would say small. Some would say short. Some would say little. Most would say definitely not a Division-1 basketball player.
He hails from New York City, New York and played the last year of his high school basketball career at The Patrick School in Hillsdale, New Jersey. His high school senior season was marked by injuries, and he would receive only one Division-1 offer from the University of Arkansas Little Rock, which was 1,245 miles away from home and a short 18 hour and 44-minute drive. 247Sports would consider him to be the 223rd best player in the nation and the 37th best point guard of the 2018 class. Ultimately, he would commit to Arkansas Little Rock.
Fast forward, in his sophomore season while at Little Rock, he would average 17.2 points, 4.9 assists, and 3.0 rebounds per game while being named to the First Team All-Sun Belt. He would do this, on average, in front of 1,560 fans when playing at home and playing at the 205th largest Division-1 arena, not exactly a center stage. For reference, during the 2019-2020 season, the University of Louisville would average 16,658 fans at home games and Kansas St. University would average 8,464 fans at home games. Despite, the low attendance Markquis Nowell kept hooping.
Fast forward even further, Markquis Nowell would transfer to Kansas St. and be named Third-team All-American, First-team All-Big 12, and Big 12 All-Defensive Team all while standing 5 feet 8 inches, having only one Division 1 offer coming out of high school, and then playing in front of a crowd of less than 2,000 people per game while at Little Rock.
Then on March 23rd, 2023, Nowell would reach the pinnacle of his career. Going farther than he had ever been in a college basketball season and seemingly becoming the face of March Madness. Nowell should be celebrated and some of his performances were unreal.
1st player with 25 points and 10 assists in a game in the Elite Eight or later since Dwyane Wade in 2003, elite company
First player since Deron Williams in 2005 with 50+ assists in one NCAA tournament. Once again, elite company
The only player in men’s college basketball tournament history to record 80+ points, 50+ assists, and 10+ steals in a single tournament
The NCAA tournament record for assists in a game with 19
A Long Path Traveled
To celebrate Nowell and all that he has done is special and should be done. However, to not realize how far he has come would be a disservice. Nowell did in fact only have one Division 1 offer and was facing an upward battle to become great in the world of basketball strictly due to genetics. He is in fact the only high-major men’s basketball scholarship player listed at 5’8” or shorter.
At one point, Nowell was just hooping into a void. No offers, injuries, averaging only 10 points per game his senior year. His work and his craft were not getting noticed. He went to three different high schools in his high school career, and one could reasonably assume this was in effort to try and grow his notoriety. Players do this everywhere. It is hard to continue to place yourself in an empty space, a space in which you haven’t been noticed.
However, everyone starts this way. Some spend more time than others in the void but without the void nothing can really be reached. Nowell’s void was empty and then Little Rock entered the void and helped to make it a little less lonely. One school willing to bet on a kid who had been working diligently to try to get noticed.
Slowly, the void continues to shrink. He is now First Team All-Sun Belt and people are beginning to notice him. Teams are beginning to notice him. He then transfers to Kansas St. and well, we know the rest.
Nowell would have never gotten to be in Madison Square Garden captivating the nation if he didn’t continue to launch himself into the void. The void one of which where he played basketball and very few, if anyone, noticed. No one was noticing but he continued to work, he continued to pour sweat equity into his dream, and he continued to not quit.
At a certain point in everyone’s journey to success, it is just an individual and their work. No one is noticing but this work, it may be the most important part of the process. This allows us to build, to grow, and to continue to expand our craft in hopes of one day getting recognized for what we do. Without this, well, you are going to get nowhere. To be able to shine when the lights are the brightest, you must work when no one is watching, and you work never knowing when people will begin to pay attention to you. You must continue to launch yourself into the void. Voids will eventually get filled that is the way in which the world works but when they will get filled, that is the million-dollar question. No one knew when the trillion-dollar electric vehicle void would get filled until Tesla entered into the equation.
The Void is Everywhere
Take Maggie Rogers. Maggie Rogers has 6,318,606 monthly listeners on Spotify. Some of her songs have close to 200 million listens. She is beginning to headline music festivals. However, it wasn’t always that way.
In March 2016, Pharrell Williams visited her music production class at New York University to critique student work. Maggie was one of those students. She played a “demo” of Alaska for Pharrell and at the end of the demo, Williams says, “WOW, WOW, I have zero, zero, zero notes for that and I will tell you why, it is because you are doing your own thing. It’s singular.”
This led to Maggie blowing up and really reaching the forefront of the public eye. She talked on what the moment meant to her and what lead up to those events.
“Part of success is having a good story, and as a journalist, I totally understand, but it meant my many, many years of focus and hard work got kind of prepackaged into a Cinderella story.”
Maggie was once launching herself into the void hoping to get noticed. Much time in the bedroom, the studio alone. Years and years of hard work all for this moment to get recognized. Maggie would have never gotten noticed if not for all the time and dedication she poured into her craft while in her bedroom or studio. She was writing and singing to mostly no one. No one knew who she was. No one listened to her music but that is not to say she wasn’t talented at the time.
Last Remarks
We have to spend time alone, time learning from others, time honing our craft and our creations way before we ever get recognized. Markquis Nowell would have never gotten noticed if not for all of those late-night gym sessions. All of the time spent launching himself into the void only for no one to notice. Maggie Rogers would never be where she is today if not for her years and years of hard work and time in her bedroom and studio alone. We have to present our craft, hone our ideas, and practice our skills to no one before it will ever get noticed.
The Stonecutter’s Credo puts this notion quite well.
“When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.”
At first, the fruits of our labor are nonexistent, zero. Nothing more than a crack shows. However, when the time comes for our fruit to bear, it will be the product of all of the work that has gone before. It will be the product of years and years of sweat equity poured into our craft and at that time, someone finally noticed what we thought we had been launching into a void the whole time.