A Nanuet Knight in the Final Four

Although Friday was the first day of April, March Madness continues through Monday night when the 2011 NCAA Men’s Basketball Champion will be crowned.

Only two out of almost six million who filled out brackets on ESPN.com ended up with the correct final four teams. Kentucky and Connecticut are perennial powers and Butler did make a final four appearance last season, but who saw VCU (Virginia Commonwealth University) coming?

This is the first year the tournament field was made of 68 teams; it had previously been 64. The four extra teams or “first four” included VCU. Without the addition of four teams to the 2011 tournament, the Rams of VCU would have been on the outside looking in. Not only did they get it, they rolled over some of the nation's best teams to secure the coveted seat in the final four.

Some of you may be wondering, “What’s the connection between VCU and Nanuet?” The answer is simple. Donny Lind, one of VCU men’s basketball’s graduate assistants.

Donny Lind was a member of the Nanuet Knights basketball team for three seasons and graduated from Nanuet High School in 2005. Lind went on to further his education and begin a career in coaching. Lind has found himself in the middle of the nation’s, or world’s, biggest amateur basketball tournament. Despite his busy schedule, Lind was kind enough to chat with Patch about his experiences.

Q: Where are you from originally?

A: I grew up in Ohio but I’ve always had family in Rockland. I moved to Nanuet when I was a sophomore in high school.

Q: After graduating Nanuet High School, what was the next step for you?

A: I attended Loyola (Maryland) in Baltimore and played basketball there. I got hurt and became involved with the managerial side of the game and decided I would like to purse coaching.

Q: How did you end up at VCU?

A: The first thing I had to do was a little bit of homework. I was looking for schools that accept entry level graduate assistants. I decided VCU looked good and one of my former coaches at Loyola knew the President of Basketball Operations at VCU. He gave me a recommendation and I was accepted.

Q: What is it like working around someone like Shaka Smart? (Smart is Head Coach at VCU, played his college basketball at Kenyon college; he turned down Harvard and Yale to attend Kenyon).

A: Working with Coach Smart has been a phenomenal experience. He is exceptionally bright in all aspects of life. He’s especially good at relating concepts to players and making it real for them. It’s incredibly important to Coach Smart that his players grow on and off the court. He is not a screamer on the sidelines or in practice, but he is so focused and so intense that everyone else feeds off of it.

Q: VCU has made it further than anyone who didn’t graduate from VCU would have thought and the NCAA tournament gets so much attention. How have the past few weeks been for you and the team?

A: It’s been hectic, incredibly busy. From the time we got into the tournament, people were saying we didn’t deserve it. We had to play our way into the first four and we have just been doing the best we can in every game. The team has really been playing well and we will continue to make every effort we can to keep winning games.

Q: Is their anything you would like to say to youngsters of Nanuet and Rockland who might be looking to travel down a similar path to yours?

A: The most important thing is that you keep working your hardest. Don’t pass up opportunities when they come your way; you don’t know when they will come again. If you really love coaching, pay no attention to title and pay. Go off your passion and take any opportunity that allows you to learn and grow.

VCU’s final four game against Butler is Saturday at 6:09 p.m. and despite the fact that most people’s brackets went up in smoke back at the sweet sixteen or the elite eight, Nanuet has a reason to watch and cheer for a former Knight.