KANSAS CITY, Mo. — It’s a Cinderella story with a Kansas City tie. It’s Graceland University’s first trip to the National Men's NAIA Basketball Tournament. They started as a 5 seed and made it all the way to the championship game.
The team is stacked with two players from the metro.
Will Nelson is a 6’3’’ shooting guard from Kansas City and graduated from Raytown High School. Nelson said his team believed they would make it this far.
“We had conditioning called ploy workouts and we would dream of moments like this,” said Nelson.
Nelson grew up with the tournament in his hometown. The NAIA Tournament has been held in KC since 1945.
Monday, the team's dream was almost cut short.
Coach Craig Doty said Nelson struggled in the first half against Shreveport.
“After playing one of the worst halves of his career, he turned around and played one of the best,” said Doty.
Nelson finished the night with 22 points and 5 rebounds, and the Yellowjackets won 87-80.
So Tuesday, players Nelson and Nick Coleman, who graduated from Liberty North, are making it to the final game in their hometown.
"I know my high school and teachers are reaching out and really wishing us good luck,” said Coleman, who is a freshman point guard.
Coleman has not played yet in the tournament but said his teammates still made him feel included and important.
NAIA told 41 Action News about 40,000 people attend the games each year.
An extra $2.6 million is generated for Kansas City businesses.
On average, visitors stay about four days in hotels. That could be more this time around since Graceland is in neighboring state Iowa. NAIA officials said fans have packed Municipal Auditorium with blue and yellow for the games.
“I think their entire town was here last night,” said Mike Higgins, the tournament director.
A team from Iowa has not made the championship game since the first year the tournament started in 1937. Originally the tournament was played in Tulsa, but it has been in Kansas City for 73 years. That’s something that Nelson said excites him.
“Hopefully we have a lot of family and people from Raytown. I hope to see a lot of familiar faces tonight,” said Nelson.
The tournament will be in KC until at least 2020. At that time Kansas City will bid for it again, but other cities may too.
The championship game tip off is at 7 p.m. Tuesday.
