For the second year in a row, the ETSU Buccaneers will play in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. On Friday, they will play Cincinnati in an attempt to move on to the second round of competition.
While this year’s Buccaneer basketball team boasts 12 talented players, two seniors have left their legacy in the Southern Conference and hope to make a mark in NCAA histoy as well.
ETSU seniors Zakee Wadood from Lonoke, Ark., and Jerald Fields from Gainesville, Fla., helped lead the Bucs to a 15-1 SoCon record, 27-5 overall, for the 2004 season and both players’ second straight NCAA tournament bid.
In post-season awards, the Bucs dominated the SoCon.
Both players were named to the coaches’ All-SoCon Team, along with sophomore Tim Smith from Newport News, Va., giving ETSU a league-best three selections on the team. Wadood was also named the SoCon MVP for the season and ETSU’s first-year coach, Murry Bartow, received the Coach of the Year award.
In individual rankings, Wadood and Fields stand out in the conference. They are ranked fourth and fifth, respectively, in total points, first and third in both double-doubles and steals and fourth and third in blocked shots. Both players are impossible to miss in conference statistics because their names appear in almost every category.
At 6-foot-5, Wadood “is a warrior,” Bartow said. “Without question, he’s the best player in our league, because he’s good at both ends of the floor. He’s a guy that fills up the stat sheet. He’s a double-double waiting to happen.”
Fields is the “go-to guy inside,” Bartow said. “He’s a very unusual player.”
Standing 6-foot-6 and weighing 270 pounds, his build is more like that of a football running back, but his size does not hinder his game. “For his size, he’s one of the most unusual kids I’ve seen because he’s a fantastic ball handler and an unbelievably good passer,”
Bartow said.
The team that Paul Stanton calls “our blue-collar team,” has won the Southern Conference North Division title for four years in a row as well as the SoCon Tournament in 2003 and 2004. Stanton said that he calls them “blue-collar” because at every game, they are there to win.
In 2003, the 15th seeded Bucs, almost upset the No. 2 seed Wake Forest Demon Deacons. This year, the Bucs moved up to 13th.
Some may think that a low-ranked team will never defeat a first or second seed, but Bartow is not afraid. “We’re 24-5. We’ve won 11 road games against Division I people … I’m not saying we’ll win the first game, but we won’t go in fearful,” Bartow said.
As the team, along with a huge crowd, waited anxiously Sunday to find out who the Bucs’ NCAA opponent would be in the first round, Bartow told those in attendance, “We’ve got 12 valuable players on this team.”
But seniors Wadood and Fields, he said, will be missed. “They are just great guys, incredibly hard to replace,” Bartow said.
“They are good players, but better guys off the floor.”
After graduation, Wadood, a business management major, and Fields, who is majoring in sports management and leisure services, both hope to play professionally, but neither are exactly sure of what they might do.
Whatever their future, this year’s seniors have made their mark at ETSU, Bartow said.
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