Jazzmarr Ferguson, senior guard, became the IUS all-time leading scorer on Thursday, Feb. 24, in the men’s Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference tournament semi-final, beating Brescia 108-70.
Ferguson broke the record with 8:02 left in the second half with 1,983 points, passing up Mitchell Speedy, who played at IU Southeast from 1993-97 and had a career total of 1,981 points.
Ferguson, who finished with a game-high of 31points, said the record was special to him.
“Right now, it’s the most special thing in the world to me,” Ferguson said. “I take pride in saying that I played for this university, and we’ve been held to a high standard ever since I’ve been here. We’re going to keep pushing, and, hopefully, I stand for something at this university now.”
Ferguson said the record came pretty naturally on the night.
“I didn’t want to come out and force things knowing I was close to the record tonight,” Ferguson said. “I just wanted to play my game and get my teammates involved, and everything else will come.”
Ferguson said even though he’s close to 2,000 career points, he’s more concerned about winning games.
“It’d be special, but winning a fourth-conference championship and making it back to the national tournament is more important right now,” Ferguson said.
IUS head coach Wiley Brown spoke highly of Ferguson and said any professional team would be lucky to have him.
“I’m telling you, any professional team out there, NBA or otherwise, this kid belongs,” Brown said. “I think that whoever gives him a shot, he’s going to make a team out there because he can score.
“He might not be able to stop everybody that he goes against, but there’s nobody that’s going to stop him,” Brown said. “The only person that can stop him is Jazzmarr Ferguson, and that’s not going to happen because the kid works too hard on and off the court.”
Ferguson talked about the team’s recent defensive struggles and both was pleased with the turnaround.
“We wanted to come out and be aggressive defensively because we got challenged,” Ferguson said. “Coach challenged us. We haven’t been playing well defensively the last couple of games, and we wanted to come out and impose our will early and often.”
Brescia head coach Joe Pechota praised IU Southeast for their defense.
“Wiley’s guys are a skilled group,” Pechota said. “When you have a team like this, that is an in-your-face type of team, and they’re going to get after it. You’ve got to try and weather the storm, and if you don’t weather that first wave, then it’s hard to get back to a level, competitive, playing field.”
By BRENT KULWICKI
Staff
bkulwick@ius.edu
