Women's Basketball | 3/1/2018 3:19:00 PM

Neither George Mason women's basketball coach Nyla Milleson nor Nicole Cardaño-Hillary expected the freshman to waltz onto campus and take over the controls of the team as a high scoring point guard.
 
  "Never, no way," said Milleson, whose team (23-9) has set a school record for wins and hosts Stephen F. Austin at 7 p.m Friday. at EagleBank Arena in the first round of the WNIT. "I thought she might split time with Alexsis (Grate)."
 
   But when sophomore Grate injured a foot in the fall, Milleson turned over the keys to the car to Cardaño-Hillary. Keep that common hoop analogy – keys to the car – in mind.
 
  The 5-7 Cardaño-Hillary responded immediately and impressively. She is averaging 17.6 points per game and 32.5 minutes a game. She has scored in double figures in 31 of 32 games.
 
   And she gets to do so with a top post player, 6-5 graduate student Natalie Butler, who leads the country with 31 consecutive double doubles while averaging 19.0 ppg and 16.3 rpg. The two were named the Atlantic 10 Player of the Year and A-10 Rookie of the Year, respectively, on Thursday.
 
  "I'm thrilled," Cardaño-Hillary said of playing with Butler and her role as floor leader. "I appreciate the confidence the coaches have in me and putting me in those situations. I feel like it's just going to help me grow as a player."
 
   Cardaño-Hillary didn't take a typical route to EagleBank Arena. Born in Madrid, Spain, she started playing basketball in third grade, coached by her mother, Erin Hillary, a native of Texas, who liked Spain so much during a term overseas that she returned after graduating from Texas Tech.
 
  "She met my father (Mario Cardaño) in Madrid, fell in love and the rest is history," Cardaño-Hillary said with a laugh.
 
   The family, including an older sister, Erica, now at Texas Tech, moved to Cedar Park, Texas, near Austin when Nicole was 12 because they eventually wanted both children to attend a U.S. university. Nicole soon became a gym rat despite being born with only one kidney.
 
  After practices at Vista Ridge High School, she and teammate Japreece Dean, now at UCLA, would often spend another two-plus hours at sessions with personal trainers Martinez Martin or Sean Hardeman.  Cardaño-Hillary also played for TEAMEXPRESS, coached by Clarissa Davis-Wrightsil, an Olympian and member of the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame.
 
   "They all built my game up," Cardaño-Hillary said.
 
   Not that it was easy. "Clarissa was really hard on Nikki," said Erin Hillary. "She used to say, 'One day a college coach is going to want to give you the keys to a sports car, a Porsche. And she's going to want you to be good enough at driving it that she can fall asleep in the passenger seat.'"
 
   Two years ago, Milleson and Mason would have been an unlikely match for Cardaño-Hillary, who piled up some gaudy stats at Vista Ridge including 30 points per game senior year. But no Texas schools intently pursued the guard.
 
   "I actually heard from one coach in Texas who said, 'You have more of an East Coast playing style," Cardaño-Hillary said.
 
   Cardaño-Hillary wasn't sure what the coach meant but wasn't bothered. She wanted an East Coast school where she could study international affairs. Milleson and her staff caught Cardaño-Hillary in a major AAU tourney in DC in the summer of 2016.
 
  "The biggest thing I liked was her motor and her steadiness," Milleson said. "We watched her several times and you'd never know if she was up or down. She knows one way to play and that's hard."
 
   Meanwhile, the Cardaño-Hillary family was learning more about Mason. "At first we were like, 'Who the heck is George Mason?" Erin Hillary said. "We researched it and I was like, 'For what you want, my dear, this looks really, really good."
 
  When Cardaño-Hillary, who also took serious looks at Seton Hall and Delaware, made her official visit to Mason, the family met president Angel Cabrera, who had grown up in the same area of Madrid as Mario Cardaño. Another coincidence was that Cabrera was previously president of Thunderbird School of Global Management, the alma mater of Erin Hillary's parents.
 
  "It was a great visit. We really connected," Cardaño-Hillary said.
 
  When Cardaño-Hillary signed, Milleson figured she had pulled a recruiting coup: "How we were able to get her out of Texas, I don't know. But we are blessed. I was confident she could put up some numbers for us. To put up the numbers she has, I'm probably a bit surprised. I think her best years are ahead of her."
 
  Cardaño-Hillary has an attacking style, always probing the defense. She has no shooting inhibitions, leading the team with 16.9 field goal attempts per game. She's shooting 34.6 percent overall and 29.6 percent from beyond the arc, while averaging 2.9 assists and a conference-best 2.5 steals per game.
 
  "She's just relentless," said St. Bonaventure coach Jesse Fleming. "I think she's underrated as a defensive player. She gets steals, runs passing lanes and blows things up.
 
   "She gets downhill and attacks. She draws fouls; she's good in the open court. She plays like a junior or a senior. She's not afraid. I guess that's the biggest thing about her. She's absolutely not afraid. She's a tough kid. Coach (Milleson) has got a good one for the next few years."