Sunrise coach Kyle Lindsted headed to the Final Four to watch two former players

Kyle Lindsted’s whirlwind spring continues this week as he makes plans to be on the road by Friday morning with his wife, Anita, driving to Indianapolis for the Final Four.

Lindsted, the Sunrise Christian elite boys basketball coach, will be sitting in the Michigan State section, cheering on former Buffaloes — Lourawls Nairn and Marvin Clark.

He also watched Michigan State advance to the Final Four with a 76-70 overtime win over Louisville in Syracuse, as well as splitting time between the Spartans’ section and the Oklahoma section during their Sweet 16 meeting. Michigan State beat Oklahoma and its star Buddy Hield, also a Sunrise product, 62-58.

“This is extremely rewarding,” Lindsted said. “The reason it is, is you see all the work they do behind closed doors. I just don’t know that people understand their commitment and the amount of work those guys put in to play at that level.”

Nairn, a freshman whose nickname is Tum-Tum, played with Clark for one year at Sunrise. Clark, also a freshman, spent last year playing for Sunrise’s postgraduate team. Hield, a junior, played with Nairn for one year.

There were seven former Sunrise players in the Sweet Sixteen, including Wichita State’s Zach Brown and Rauno Nurger.

Lindsted’s relationship with Nairn and Hield is so close that he considers it a father-son bond.

“We text quite a bit, especially me and Tum,” Lindsted said. “And Buddy’s making a decision (by Friday) about whether he’s going to the NBA or not, so I’m talking to him a lot, texting him a lot.”

In the hours following the Sunrise elite team’s national championship win over LaLumiere (Indiana) in the Kentucky Bluegrass Series on March 25, Lindsted got into a group texting chat with Hield, Nairn and Clark. They convinced him to come to Syracuse to watch the Oklahoma-Michigan State matchup in the Sweet 16.

He drove all night to get to the Nashville airport and then flew to Syracuse.

“I was up like 32 hours straight,” Lindsted said. “… I got into town and texted Buddy, ‘I’m here. I need to sleep.’ But he said, ‘Coach, I found a Jamaican restaurant, I want to get some Jamaican food with you.’

“He couldn’t wait to hang out. After that, we went to Tum’s hotel. They were talking mad trash to each other.”

The trio convinced Lindsted that he couldn’t wear either Michigan State green or Oklahoma crimson, so he wore a Sunrise shirt.

“Then there was a little fight over whose ticket I was going to use, whose section I would sit in,” Lindsted said. “So here’s what happened: I got a ticket from OU and a ticket from Michigan State, and I split my time.”

He ended up spending more time on the Oklahoma side as he sat with Hield’s mom, who had driven from Florida.

Lindsted didn’t enjoy that game, though.

“I didn’t have a great time. It was almost a nightmare,” he said. “I thought it was going to be fun. It was a lot of fun leading up to it, but when the game started, it got really confusing emotionally for me.

“I did get to comfort Buddy after the loss, and then I spent the night watching film with the Michigan State guys, up until like 3:15 (a.m.).”

Lindsted understands he’s in a special position.

“I just think that it’s been a good year,” he said. “We’ve seen the fruit of our labor in a real way. I’ve always kind of seen it because I’ve got these relationships with these guys. It’s good for the people around our program, people in Wichita, to see that Sunrise is doing it for real.”

This story was originally published April 2, 2015 at 9:14 AM with the headline "Sunrise coach Kyle Lindsted headed to the Final Four to watch two former players."