The Men’s Basketball team may have closed out their season on Feb 15 with an overall record of 9-14, but the hype is far from over for their senior superstar, Matt Vadas. With a monumental total of 1,697 points Vadas, a co-captain with fellow senior John Bullit, became the program’s all-time leading scorer. Vadas not only surpassed the previous scoring record of 1656 points, held for over a decade by Kareem Tatum ’01, but was also dubbed Conn’s “three-point shooting king” garnering 239 triples by season’s end.
When I asked about his most memorable game in his four years at Conn, Vadas recalled February 14th, “I’ll always remember the game against Williams because it was when I broke the record and even though we came out in a loss (98-90) it was definitely one of the better games we played as a team.”
Though today he is an undeniable shooting legend, Vadas didn’t earn this title overnight. With basketball as his passion since he was three years old, Vadas described his changing role on the court, “In high school I was a little smaller so I played guard, but mostly at college I’ve played in the forward position. A lot of the offense is centered around the forward position scoring so it was nice that my teammates had faith in me shooting a lot of the shots.”
Vadas also spoke about the team’s desire to make playoffs: “We would’ve liked to have made playoffs. We had a really strong beginning of the year, but we kind of faded at the end.” Notwithstanding this letdown, the 2013 season remained Vadas’s favorite in his time at Conn: “This was the most enjoyable season on and off the court because we were really close as a team. Even though we had a large number of both seniors and freshman it never felt like there were any cliques, and I think that we played the best basketball on the court because of this cohesion off of it.”
While others may be concerned with the basketball team graduating one of its most exceptional players, Vadas has nothing but faith in the program’s future:
“We kind of came into a broken program, and it was really nice after our four years to feel like we have it going in the right direction. Even though we didn’t have the best record, the progress we made is incredible and shows the best is yet to come.”
And the best really is yet to come. After graduation, the spotlight may follow Vadas to Europe, where he hopes to find an opportunity to play the sport at a semi-professional level. But no matter where life takes him, Vadas said, “I definitely want to stick around basketball. I don’t know if I’m coach material, but I’m sure I’ll stay with the sport somehow.”
Even off the court, Vadas stays competitive. His current goal? Beating the entire Lego Harry Potter video game along with fellow senior Christian Sbarro. In his down time, however, you’ll probably find Vadas listening to his all-time favorite band, Phish: “It’s a jam band, like a Grateful Dead for a younger generation.”
Vadas reflected on his incredible four year journey that wouldn’t have been possible without his, “awesome group of seniors and teammates” or Coach Satran: “He’s great. He’s definitely been through a lot with the team, and the positives he created made the experience what it was.”
When I asked one of his best friends for a comment on Vadas, there was no mention of him as Conn’s all-time leading scorer or of his unbelievable three-pointers. Instead, she simply looked at me and said, “Matt is the nicest kid I’ve ever met in my entire life and I’ve met a lot of people, so that says something.”
