“I remember just seeing Duke as a one seed and I’m like, this is going to be awesome. I just know it. And next thing you know, we are the 16 seed playing game. And I kind of got chills, just like the fact that I had watched that my whole life. And then next thing you know, like I get announced that I’m gonna be playing, in March Madness. It was a crazy feeling. I don’t even I don’t even know how to describe it” (Wyatt Nausadis).
Traverse City St. Francis grad Wyatt Nausadis achieved his dream of playing Division one basketball. He’s a 6′4 point guard for American University in the Patriot League, and in his first year helped lead the Eagles to the NCAA tournament for the first time in 11 years.
“I committed to, to a team and a staff that I think had had a chance to play in March Madness, and that was kind of exciting. First semester was hectic. Obviously adjusting to school and four hours of basketball day, and kind of that new schedule.
And then the season came along and, there was ups and downs. I think there’s a lot of a lot to battle with; Being a freshman in college sports and trying to figure out what my role is going to be... and by the end of the year, I was back at point guard, playing ten minutes a game on a team that made it to the NCAA tournament” (Nausadis).
American entered their conference tournament as the two seed, though sharing the regular season title with Bucknell. They overcame an 11-point halftime deficit in their opening game against Lafayette, and would have to do something they were unable to do in the regular season in order to be tournament champs
“We come to find out that we’re hosting the championship game, at our place. And we were playing a Navy team who we had already lost to twice in the regular season. And we all kind of looked at each other and were like, there’s there’s no way we lose this again. I mean, we’re the best team in the conference, we’ve been playing like it. We’re not going to drop another game in Navy.
The whole championship day was like a blur. We were just waiting all day for the game. We play our arena completely sold out. They brought in, like, tons of extra bleachers. Everything” (Nausadis).
The Eagles rose to the challenge. They defeated Navy 74 to 52, and for the first time since 2014, the Eagles were not only tournament champions but were going dancing.
“I know like our whole year, our coach’s big thing was like, he really wants the seniors to get to experience it.
He was like, I want the seniors to experience March Madness because, and he was kind of like joking, but he was being serious. Like, the lights are brighter, the pillows are softer. The blankets feel better. Like everything’s better.
And then, you get to March Madness and it’s really, It’s really true. Like we had planes chartered for us for which as a little major Division 1 school, I mean, it’s not very common. So planes picked us up, busses everywhere, like, we didn’t wait for anything. Police escorts to our practices, to our gyms, to our hotel. Tons of gear given to us. Just things that you don’t that aren’t normal for, like a regular away game. A lot more cameras, obviously, and all that.
So it was it was it was unreal. And then playing an actual game itself was, like nothing else. All around it was it was amazing. It was something I’ll never forget” (Nausadis).
The Eagles would fall to Mount Saint Mary’s by single digits in the play in round, but the bar for what Wyatt and the team can accomplish in the future has been raised.
“In the next couple of years, I’d like to be having, a bigger role. And I’d like to say, like, I made March Madness playing 30 minutes a game, and I was one of the one of those guys. And I and I think as a team that’s going to be the standard from now on is to win this conference and have that experience. That’s something the coaching staff really wants it to be, and that’s something they expect of us”.
And even though Wyatt played on the biggest stage, he hasn’t forgotten his hometown roots.
“And kind of that discipline that I learned at Saint Francis, made it much easier to take a jump to the next level, which without Saint Francis, I wouldn’t be where I am” (Nausadis).
