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Unless the ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Wildcats were playing. Then, no.

“If I’m watching the Suns or if ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ is playing Oregon, it’s like ‘All right, I should be in bed,’â€� said Nelson, the former Salpointe High School standout who committed to the Wildcats last week as a grad transfer. “Anytime the Pac-12 was playing, it was ‘I’m up too late.’â€�

Not that Nelson didn’t want to stay up any later. As a ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ native who absorbed the program as a youth, especially as the Wildcats rose under Sean Miller, Nelson always had an eye on McKale Center.

And part of his heart.

“I grew up� watching them, Nelson told the Star via telephone from Harvard. “I mean, Derrick Williams, I remember him just being a monster. I remember going to Sean Miller camp and friggin’ Kyle Fogg — I’m crying after losing a game and Kyle Fogg is consoling me.�

Fogg, a key player during the Wildcats’ transition from interim coach Russ Pennell in 2008-09 through Miller’s first three UA teams, left the Wildcats in 2012 for an international career and eventual stardom in China.

But Nelson said he also recalls a summertime workout years later at Salpointe, where he became the Kino Region’s 4A player of the year in 2019-20, and Fogg showed up, offering some valuable tips.

“He was just a stand-up guy,� Nelson said.

Then, there were the peak Miller years, 2013-14 and 2014-15, when ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ frequently spun off NBA players while reaching the Elite Eight both seasons and the 2017-18 season with eventual No. 1 NBA pick Deandre Ayton.

“I remember watching Alonzo Trier, Deandre Ayton, Aaron Gordon, Stanley Johnson, Nick Johnson,� Nelson said, rattling the names off quickly. “A lot of guys.�

But after Nelson finished helping Salpointe to the state 4A title as a senior in 2019-20, there were just too many other priorities.

Surviving Harvard, where Nelson became an academic all-Ivy pick en route to an expected degree in sociology next month and basketball meant being careful with leisure time.

“It’s just time management. Everything is time management,� Nelson said. “You think you have downtime on the bus ride or waiting in the airport, but you’ve got to be studying. You’ve got to be doing work.

“Sleep, social life, academics — you don’t really want to sacrifice sleep. You can’t sacrifice your academics. So it’s cutting (some) social life. You only have so much time.�

So, the Wildcats were a lower priority, at least temporarily, though Nelson kept up in part via communication with former Salpointe teammate Grant Weitman, who spent the past five seasons as a reserve guard for the Wildcats.

After leaving Salpointe, Nelson spent the 2020 fall semester at Harvard, but with the Ivy League opting out during the COVID-altered 2020-21 season, returned to ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ in the spring of 2021 and spent a gap year working remotely as a sales strategy intern for Scottsdale’s Axon Enterprise.

He kept working in the fall of 2021 in order to maximize his eligibility, since if he moved too fast toward graduation, an Ivy League rule wouldn’t allow him to play afterward.

But when he returned to Harvard in the spring of 2022, Nelson jumped into college basketball, into Harvard studies, into the middle of a season, all at once.

“I watched every (fall semester) game very intently, and I kind of was upset that I had to miss out on that first half of the season,� Nelson said. “Then when I did come back, I was just thrown in the deep end. I spent extra time working with the coaches in whiteboard sessions: This is our plays, this is our system, this is how we play defense.

“I was expecting to redshirt that season, but in my first game, coach (Tommy) Amaker threw me out there and I actually ended up playing pretty well.�

Maybe he was making up for all that lost time. Nelson had nine points, four rebounds, two assists and a block against Columbia in that game on Jan. 15, 2022, while hitting 2 of 3 3-pointers.

Nelson went on to average 6.2 points in 13 games that season, then moved into the Crimson’s starting lineup in the third game of the 2022-23 season. He averaged 8.4 points and 3.4 assists that season while shooting 38.8% from 3-point range and was expected to be a team leader as a junior in 2023-24.

But on the last day of an 2023 August exhibition tour in Canada, Nelson tore his left Achilles.

“I thought, ‘This is really going to be my year’ ... but with that injury, it just didn’t end up happening,� Nelson said. “I was like, ‘Man, I got hurt at the wrong time.’�

There was a silver lining. Actually, a red and blue one.

Nelson sat out all of the 2023-24 season but, thanks to that Ivy League rule preventing graduates from playing even if they have remaining eligibility, the year off meant Nelson would have to play elsewhere in 2024-25, and he had the credentials to command a higher-level opportunity.

He just didn’t know, and initially didn’t want to know, that ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ would be one of those options.

Nelson said he knew of other Ivy League grads who spent an extra year at “some pretty cool spotsâ€� — one of them, Cornell grad Stone Gettings, played for ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ in 2019-20 — but said he focused on rehabbing in 2023-24 and finishing strongly in 2024-25.

“I had to make a point of not thinking about it for the entire year,� Nelson said.

That changed not long after Harvard’s season ended on March 8 with a home finale win over Dartmouth, when Nelson typically filled the box score with 12 points, 2 of 4 3s, three rebounds, two assists and two steals.

Before long, Nelson said, Furman invited him for a visit, UC San Diego called and so did, of all people, Sean Miller. The former UA and Xavier coach had seen Nelson play with his son, Braden, at Salpointe, and now taking over at Texas.

“A few schools reached out, but I pretty much knew what I wanted,� Nelson said. “It was either play for a good mid-major school that was going to be in, or had already been, in the tournament, or go for that high-level spot.�

Ultimately, there was really no decision. After UA assistant coach TJ Benson took a trip to Boston to talk to Nelson in person, and UA coach Tommy Lloyd called to offer him a spot on his 2025-26 roster, Nelson’s brief recruitment was basically over.

Weitman helped make sure of it.

“Once he heard, he was like ‘Man, don’t even give it a thought. Come join the family,’� Nelson said.

Weitman, who turned down a chance to play more minutes elsewhere as a graduate in 2024-25 to return for a fifth season with the Wildcats, said he was excited to see Nelson get the chance to play for UA.

“It’s really cool he has the opportunity to play here and he has earned it,� Weitman said. “He’s a really good player and a good guy.�

Nelson says he has “no idea� what role he will play for the Wildcats, figuring that will get sorted out after he arrives this summer. But he’ll be expected to bring experience and IQ to their backcourt, if nothing else, moving into the backup point guard role vacated by the transferring Conrad Martinez, and maybe more.

But in one sense, it doesn’t matter.

What matters is that Nelson will be playing at ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥, not wearing some sort of UA camp jersey or T-shirt but a real jersey, for the real Wildcats, for a final season of college basketball.

“It was totally a dream. Totally a dream,� Nelson said. “Did I think I could play there? Yeah, absolutely. I was always hoping that Harvard could get a game scheduled back at McKale. But having this opportunity now? It’s like ‘All right, I get to prove it.’�