The Nevada Sagebrush

Senior Brandon Fields, playing in his final regular season home game with the Wolf Pack, scored 13 points and grabbed seven rebounds. Fields averaged 14.6 points per game during the regular season.

Brandon Fields hit a wall earlier this season.

After suffering a right ankle injury against Utah State on Feb. 6, his game declined.

The senior Nevada guard wasn’t his usual explosive self. He wasn’t the Fields fans were used to seeing — the Fields who would sky in out of nowhere and throw down a monstrous dunk.

Including the Utah State game and the four games after that, Fields averaged only seven points per game. Wolf Pack men’s basketball head coach David Carter acknowledged the ankle injury was taking a toll on Fields.

“He’s not playing with a lot of confidence right now because the ball’s not dropping, but we still have a lot of games left,” Carter said about two weeks ago.

But Carter said he told Fields to “start over.”

“I thought he hit a wall there, just trying to do too much,” Carter said. “We just told him to take his time, take shots in rhythm and that’s basically what he’s been doing.”

Since the end of that horrid five-game stretch, Fields has played the best basketball of his collegiate career. In the last four games (Nevada is 3-1) he’s averaged 21.8 points, 5.3 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game.

Last Thursday against New Mexico State, Fields posted a career-high 32 points on 11-of-15 shooting.

“It almost feels unstoppable,” Fields said with a big smile after the game. “I can penetrate and find my teammates — everything was just going real smooth for me.”

Overcoming adversity is not something unfamiliar to the 6-foot-4 guard. Last season, he was cited for petty larceny and was suspended indefinitely by then-head coach Mark Fox. Fields, then a junior, said he acted “immaturely” and “wasn’t thinking.”

Fox benched Fields and didn’t start him all year.

“It humbled me a lot,” Fields said earlier this season. “I want to leave a positive mark on this team when I go and I see things a lot differently in every aspect of life.”

Instead of moping over the offseason between his junior and senior year, Fields came back with a vengeance and is the team’s hottest player heading into the Western Athletic Conference Tournament.

His senior year has been a season-long highlight reel.

Countless times, he’s thrown down a picture-perfect lob pass from point guard Armon Johnson. On Dec. 17 against Eastern Washington he hit the game-winning three-pointer with 4.3 seconds left, drawing a deafening roar from the home crowd at Lawlor Events Center and making a hero out of him.

But the chaotic road that has been Fields’ collegiate career is nearing its end. As the only four-year senior on the team and one of only two players on the team with experience in the NCAA Tournament (he went in 2006-07 as a freshman), Fields has become the team’s emotional leader and is playing with a renewed sense of urgency.

“I know that any game can be my last,” he said. “I could get hurt so I’m playing with the mindset of ‘every game could be my last.’”

He also isn’t ready to end his collegiate career without one more trip to the Big Dance.

“(The end of my career) came real fast,” he said. “It seems like just the other day I was guarding (former Nevada player) Ramon (Sessions) in practice and getting yelled at by coach Fox. I had a good career here, but now we’re ready to send out all the seniors on top.”

And despite the waves he’s encountered with the Wolf Pack, he doesn’t regret the journey he took to get where he’s at.

“I went through a lot of ups and downs and it helped me become a better person as a man,” he said. “I’ve learned a lot from my experiences here. I’ve messed up, but I’ve bounced back stronger.”

Juan López can be reached at jlopez@nevadasagebrush.com.

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