By Bob Sutton
Special to The Alamance News
Kuluel Mading, a former boys’ basketball player for The Burlington School, received a taste of the NCAA Tournament and he’d like another.
Mading returned to the state with Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference champion Norfolk State to compete in the tournament last week at Lenovo Center in Raleigh.
“It’s amazing to do something here like this in North Carolina,” Mading said. “There was a lot of people who couldn’t come. There was a lot of people who came. They all showed love. It was great to finish the season out back home.”
Norfolk State lost to Florida, the West Region’s top seed, in the first round by 95-69.
Mading played on a state championship team for TBS in 2021. He embraced last week’s opportunity.
“The journey from The Burlington School to here, it was a long journey,” he said. “There was a lot of people that believed. There was a lot of people who didn’t believe. I’m more for the believers, so I felt like I was trying to prove people right than prove people wrong. The people that believed in me, believed in me for a reason.”
Mading, a 6-foot-9 forward, scored one point and grabbed five rebounds in the Florida game. He played nearly 20 minutes in a starting role.
“Even though we lost, we’re still walking out here as champs,” he said. “We’re still going to get a ring (for winning the MEAC). . . We showed them in spurts, we’re here to play. We wouldn’t be here if we weren’t built for it.”
Mading began his college career at Buffalo before two seasons with Norfolk State. He said he’s petitioning for an extra season of eligibility after a challenging second season at Buffalo, saying it was cut short when he left the team because of his father’s death in January 2023.
Mading averaged a career-best 7.2 points per game this season.
“This is my first time (in the tournament),” he said. “Now we know how it is. I most definitely would like to be back in the Big Dance.”
Toole’s time in tourney
Andrew Toole, who began his collegiate playing career at Elon before transferring to Pennsylvania, is coach at Robert Morris, which won the Horizon League and played in the NCAA Tournament.
Alabama defeated Robert Morris 90-81 in last Friday’s first round in Cleveland. The team ended with a 26-9 record.
Toole, 44, has been Robert Morris’ coach since May 2010. He also coached the Colonials into the 2015 NCAA Tournament by winning the Northeast Conference.
