Naters Gonna Nate, Part 542

I thought everything had basically been accomplished by SDSU point guard Nate Wolters.

I was wrong. Very wrong.

After a career-high, school-record and NCAA season-high 53 points Thursday against Fort Wayne in a 80-74 win, he's basically proved that the rest of the season is his for the taking.

I'll let the SDSU game recap take some of the details here:

Wolters scored 38 of his points in the second half, one more than the entire IPFW team, finishing the night 17-of-28 shooting overall, 9-of-14 from 3-point range and 10-of-11 from the free throw line.

"They were sagging off of me and my felt pretty good tonight, I was able to knock a couple down and just got into a little bit of a rhythm," Wolters said. "It's a good accomplishment, but it's a big win for us, we had to have it. We knew that they were gonna come out and play hard, they played tough, but we were able to put together a big second half and pull away."

The 53 points not only tops his previous career-high of 36, but breaks the SDSU single-game mark of 44 points, set by Dave Thomas against Coe College on March 10, 1973. His nine 3-pointers tops his previous high of five, set in the season-opener at Alabama, and breaks the SDSU mark of eight, a mark set by Jason Sempsrott on Jan. 12, 1996 vs. North Dakota State, and by Randy Suarez against Augustana on Feb. 7, 1987.

Of course, he's good but the ability to just take over is a skill that few players have. Fort Wayne is one of those places where the building is pretty dead and he made his performance count on a night when the Jacks needed it badly. I'll be curious to see what happens at Oakland Saturday in a must-win ballgame. But as Wolters put it, every game has been a must-win since about mid-December. The Jacks share 1st place with Western Illinois after a three-point loss for NDSU against the Golden Grizzlies tonight.

Earlier this year, I said that I didn't think he would score in bunches at home on a Collegian postgame video. I was wrong because he went for 29 the next game but tonight validates the claim some because I did say that he would have his big games on the road. This will qualify there. At the end of the day, the Jacks need him more on the road because they play much better as a unit at home. 

Wolters is one of two reasons SDSU is the favorite to get back to the NCAA Tournament, along with having the Summit League tournament in Sioux Falls. I would have to say that he gives the Jackrabbits a great chance of getting a win in the Big Dance. He's that good but I'm not telling you anything you didn't already know.

Some of the media from tonight. Check it out as well:

Nate Wolters erupts for 53 points, most by any Division I player this season (Yahoo).

South Dakota State's Nate Wolters scores 53, highest total this season  (ESPN)

Night Court: Nate Wolters gives CBB most points in a game since '09 (CBSSports.com)

Goodbye, 'Roos.

I was going to lead with this but Nate Wolters did his thing, so the Kansas City to the Western Athletic Conference gets bumped. The Kangaroos will be out of the Summit after this year. There's a lot of facets to this, so we'll get to this in bulletpoints.

• At best, this is a lateral move. There's only one way to buy this and that's if the Kangaroos were the third or fourth best basketball team in the conference and were consistently on the cusp of making it to the NCAA Tournament. That's just not the case because their men's basketball program, which should be marquee program for a non-football school, is awful and poorly-managed. 
• Obviously, UMKC has a tough time reading the tea leaves here. Of the nine current members in the conference, SEVEN are leaving the WAC by July 1, 2014. There's a reason everyone else is leaving and they clearly don't see it the same way everyone else does. Denver just left the conference. Was nobody in Kansas City paying attention?
• What's left is not Murderer's Row: California State University, Bakersfield; Chicago State University; Grand Canyon University; New Mexico State University; Seattle University, The University of Texas-Pan American and Utah Valley University.
• The WAC is not anymore of an airplane league than the Summit. Let me know if you find any cheap flights to Las Cruces, N.M.
• They are centrally-located in the Summit. The Kangaroos will be the second-most eastern school in the WAC now. More proof geography doesn't matter anymore in conference realignment.
• How does UMKC not address the media with a press conference today. They really don't know what they're doing, do they?
• People need to get over this idea that the Summit is just garbage as a basketball league. It's not spectacular but it's not like it's high Division II either. See the Wolters notes above. Frank Gaines, Travis Bader, Ceola Clark III, Marshall Bjorklund are all great players. I know that Denver is decent this year (Ha, they're coming to the Summit, New Mexico State made The Dance last year and Utah State is usually good.) Two of those teams are leaving and NMSU will try to get out at any moment. Perception is everything and people will likely see that the WAC is a fraud, far from where it was years ago.
• I would be surprised if the Summit disintegrates, which is what is posed here by Kansas City Star writer Blair Kerkhoff. Certainly, Oakland to the Horizon is a real possibility. As it stands, it doesn't make sense for Omaha to leave the Summit right now because they are in the I-29 pact with the Dakota schools. Also, I don't buy that the WAC is looking at SIU-Edwardsville either. 
• Also thrown out there is SDSU and NDSU looking at the Missouri Valley. That is probably a dream scenario for NDSU for sure but SDSU has a lot going for them in the Summit. The conference tourney is in their backyard and they are having great success. The Valley is a basketball league for sure. However, if the offer is there (it's clearly a step up), how do you turn it down? This would only happen with moves by Creighton and Evansville to the Catholic 7 and the Horizon, respectively.

Lots to chew on there. 

One last time

I'll be heading to St. Cloud Friday for the final WCHA regular season series between St. Cloud State and Minnesota for the weekend showdown, which should be a great series. The Huskies are No. 1 in the conference and the Gophers are No. 3 but it's the Maroon and Gold are No. 1 in the Pairwise rankings (which basically decide who gets into the NCAA Tournament) in what is the final season for college hockey's best league as we know it. I'll miss it and I will probably wax poetic about the WCHA on Monday.