Marquette Interested In Memphis Transfer Austin Nichols

ESPN's Jeff Goodman and Andy Katz are reporting that  Marquette and Notre Dame are amongst the immediate suitors for the services of Austin Nichols.

Nichols recently requested his release from Memphis and was granted that release earlier today.  Likely as a result of the odd timing of the request, Memphis issued Nichols a conditional release: No other American Athletic Conference school, no team already scheduled to play Memphis, and also not Tennessee.  Nichols will have to sit out for a year at his new school, and then will have two years of eligibility remaining.

Nichols was recruited to Duke by Marquette head coach Steve Wojciechowski back when he was the associate head coach for the Blue Devils, so a relationship between the two already exists.  Nichols did just finish his sophomore year for the Tigers, so it may have been a few years since he and Wojciechowski have talked, but the relationship still exists.

Nichols is a 6'8", 228 lb. forward from Collierville, Tennessee.  He averaged 13.3 points and 6.1 rebounds for the Tigers during his sophomore season.  He also was crafty with the ball, ranking just outside the top 200 in the country in turnover rate, and he ranked 8th in the country in block rate, via KenPom.com.  Nichols is not much of a shooter, having taken just ten three-point attempts in two seasons with the Tigers and only shooting 61% from the free throw line in 2014-15.

Adding Nichols would leave Marquette with just one available scholarship for the 2015-16 season.  That spot, though, would effectively be Steve Taylor's roster spot, as Nichols would take the final available scholarship for the 2016-17 season.  Of course, given the attention given to Henry Ellenson, it's hard to say that Wojo would be done recruiting for 16-17 just by bringing in Nichols.