Sunrise Christian Academy in Bel Aire has produced five of the 17 players on Wichita State’s men’s basketball roster. In the past nine years, the kindergarten through high school has made itself into a powerhouse program with approximately 40 Division 1 athletes coming out of it.

Former Sunrise head coach and current WSU men’s assistant coach Kyle Lindsted started the empire that Sunrise is today. Not only did he build the domain, but his parents also were the ones who built the entire school.

“A big part of Sunrise’s success is my parents who started the school. My dad was an engineering teacher at WSU. Their focus is really missions — they love to affect hearts and souls,” Lindsted said. “When it came to basketball, I told them, ‘This is my vision, this is what I really want to do,’ and they supported me through all of it.”

The Sunrise basketball teams consists of three different teams – the high school team, which is one of the elite high school programs in the nation, the post-grad prep team, and the select high school team, which is a junior-varsity team. Sunrise head coach Luke Barnwell has been coaching at Sunrise for four seasons.

“The players come in the doors with some ability, drive and work ethic, but I think our reputation is good around the country as well as college coaches knowing that our kids are getting pushed,” Barnwell said. “We practice them hard and try to teach them how to play the right way. We hold them accountable off the court as well.”

Academics, morals and all-around character are promoted outside of athletics. The program focuses on hitting hard academic wise to provide players with a good academic base. Lindsted believes the family atmosphere at Sunrise influences the players in a positive way.

“I think the basketball aspect of it has been well covered, which is obvious to see, but we have aggressively pushed them academically,” Lindsted said. “Morally and spiritually there is a huge emphasis of living the right way, doing the right things, being the right kind of person, and the spiritual aspect is big. The faith you see on display by the faculty and the teachers every day, it’s life changing for a lot of these guys. It makes a huge impact on them.”

The five players from Sunrise on the WSU roster include Rauno Nurger, Zach Brown, C.J. Keyser, Eric Hamilton and Brett Barney. Buddy Hield, former University of Oklahoma guard and NBA player for the Pelicans, also came out of Sunrise.

“I had a great experience at Sunrise. The people were really helpful to me and the atmosphere over there just enhances you,” Nurger said. “Discipline is a huge thing over there. You can’t be lazy and it teaches you to do the right things.”

“I got stronger and faster and became a better player,” Barney said. “I met a lot of new people and made a lot of good friendships over there.”

The relationship between Sunrise and WSU, Lindsted said is “as good as good can be between programs.”

The WSU coaching staff watches a lot of the Sunrise games and practices and vice versa, he said. This gives the players and coaches an opportunity to get to know each other and how the program works. The two programs even had similar practice structures.

“Our practices at Sunrise were kind of similar to the ones we have here at WSU,” Nurger said. “It was nice coming over to WSU and already being familiar with the drills.”

Lindsted and the WSU players who came from Sunrise have a special connection because they all started there and moved on to Wichita State.

“Coaching people coached at Sunrise and following you – that’s what it’s all about. I love that; it’s just a special bond,” Lindsted said. “They’re family to me, I’m family to them. We got a great relationship here with our staff and the Sunrise staff. We’re real intertwined; we’re all a big family. It’s a lot of fun to build that camaraderie.”