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Re: NSIC Tournament- Sanford Pentagon
McCaffrey is the kid we got late in the recruiting season after Nate committed to SDSU, most likely for the reasons mentioned by UWMandSDSU. Nate and Cam are/were in the same recruiting class, but I doubt McCaffrey would've come to Augie if Nate hadn't chosen SDSU. While Nate is obviously a one-of-a-kind player (and many Augie fans who understand how good Nate was have played the "What if..." game more times than I'd like to count), McCaffrey still ended up as Augie's all-time leading scorer, which made the wound of losing out on Nate at least a little less painful.
As far as Cody Schilling goes, he and Nate would've played together for three years, as Cody was a sophomore when Nate was a freshman. Plus, Cody primarily played the 2 and a little 3 throughout his career.
McCaffrey came off the bench for the Vikes behind senior Jordan Dalton (the kid I'm guessing SF_Rabbit_Fan is referring to). That year, Cam was Freshman of the Year in our league, as well as 2nd-team All-Conference. I would imagine Nate would've done similarly, if not better. As far as whether Nate would've started as a freshman, we'll never know. I will say that Billeter has shown over the years that his philosophy for starting spots seems to be that the right players in the right situations are going to start, regardless of seniority, etc., so if Wolters had been ready to start as a freshman (which is quite possible), I wouldn't have been shocked if he'd been starting by the end of his freshman year. At the same time, Dalton was a a pretty perfect point guard for what we needed on that team (I believe he led the nation in assist-to-turnover ratio that year). The Vikes lost in overtime in the Regional Championship game that year and, until this season, the '09 team was Billeter's best squad at Augie, so the chemistry we had worked pretty nicely. We had a good mix of scorers and distributors, so I wouldn't necessarily say it's a guarantee Wolters would've snagged Dalton's starting job. At the same time, Nate was obviously just as good at distributing as he was at scoring, so it wouldn't have been a total shocker.
Sorry for so much history/detail. I just figured I'd clear up some of the questions/confusion.
Originally posted by UWMandSDSU
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As far as Cody Schilling goes, he and Nate would've played together for three years, as Cody was a sophomore when Nate was a freshman. Plus, Cody primarily played the 2 and a little 3 throughout his career.
McCaffrey came off the bench for the Vikes behind senior Jordan Dalton (the kid I'm guessing SF_Rabbit_Fan is referring to). That year, Cam was Freshman of the Year in our league, as well as 2nd-team All-Conference. I would imagine Nate would've done similarly, if not better. As far as whether Nate would've started as a freshman, we'll never know. I will say that Billeter has shown over the years that his philosophy for starting spots seems to be that the right players in the right situations are going to start, regardless of seniority, etc., so if Wolters had been ready to start as a freshman (which is quite possible), I wouldn't have been shocked if he'd been starting by the end of his freshman year. At the same time, Dalton was a a pretty perfect point guard for what we needed on that team (I believe he led the nation in assist-to-turnover ratio that year). The Vikes lost in overtime in the Regional Championship game that year and, until this season, the '09 team was Billeter's best squad at Augie, so the chemistry we had worked pretty nicely. We had a good mix of scorers and distributors, so I wouldn't necessarily say it's a guarantee Wolters would've snagged Dalton's starting job. At the same time, Nate was obviously just as good at distributing as he was at scoring, so it wouldn't have been a total shocker.
Sorry for so much history/detail. I just figured I'd clear up some of the questions/confusion.
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