With Wayne State having coaches go to bigger places, it has led to a series of open doors at other colleges and universities in the Division I level. This year a few of those coaches such as Pat Monaghan of Nebraska, Rico Burkett and Ryun Williams of Colorado State led their teams to respective NCAA tournaments this year.

Monaghan has 19 years of experience under his belt, while currently being an assistant coach for Nebraska basketball.

“Wayne’s a special place. I mean there’s a lot of great coaches that have coached there,” Monaghan said. “I worked for Rico Burkett. He worked for Greg McDermott and I think Wayne instilled in Rico and instilled in me as far as just being an everyday guy and continuing to get better as a person and as a coach. But it’s important to understand it’s about the players and to this day it’s still about the players for me.”

With the small town of Wayne and the small college, it led to close relationships with the players and coaches that grew to stronger impacts on and off the court.

“The biggest thing that I took from Wayne is just the number of people in the town,” Monaghan said. “Number one, they really supported the college within the town of Wayne. I mean they were Husker fans too even though it’s two hours away.”

Coach Williams is in his 14th season with Colorado State as the women’s basketball head coach.

During his 10 years at WSC, Williams had a record of 182-106 and became the winningest women’s basketball coach in school history.

“Making it to the NCAA tournament this year was very rewarding for all the hard work that our team put in, and then to perform well on a national stage against Michigan State,” Ryun Williams said. “We’re not about moral victories, but just very proud of the program and how they competed on that stage.”

Coach Burkett is now an assistant under Williams at CSU after both overlapping at WSC for eight years.

Burkett was the Wildcats men’s head coach while Williams was the head coach on the women’s side.

The main mindset that is key, is to make it a regular game and not just a March Madness game Williams said.

“Wayne had an incredible community that really supported women’s basketball,” Williams said. “You had to do it all, but I think that’s what makes you know if you’re passionate about your profession, you do it all there.”