DJ Burns, Rock Hill native and Winthrop big man, named Big South Player of the Year

DJ Burns has scored some more league-wide attention.

The Winthrop redshirt junior has been named Big South Player of the Year, per an announcement from the conference on Tuesday.

This recognition adds to an already robust set of accolades Burns has accumulated since transferring to the Rock Hill university in the summer of 2019: He was named Freshman of the Year after the 2019-20 season; he’s been a part of two Big South tournament championship teams (and will be vying for a third-straight title later this week); and he was named the conference’s preseason player of the year just a few months ago.

Burns is now the sixth different Eagle to win Big South Player of the Year honors and the fourth in the last six years. (Chandler Vaudrin, Winthrop’s creative point guard and triple-double machine who started his pro career in 2021, earned the same award last year.)

The 6-foot-9, 275-pound forward led Winthrop with 15.3 points per game and shot a conference-leading 63.5% from the field in 2021-22.

Per a release from the conference, Burns received five first-place votes and earned 318 total points from the league’s head coaches and media panel. That put him just ahead of UNC Asheville’s Drew Pember (311 points, seven first-place votes) and Longwood’s Justin Hill (297 points, 12 first-place votes).

Burns’ path to Winthrop and his rise thereafter has been well-documented: He grew up in Rock Hill and played basketball at Rock Hill public charter school York Preparatory Academy. There, the lefty gentle giant found himself being courted by college basketball programs across the country. Winthrop was the first school to offer him a scholarship. South Carolina and Virginia followed. UNC’s Roy Williams even visited York Prep’s gym to watch him play on occasion.

But Burns ultimately chose Tennessee in June 2018.

After a year in Knoxville, needing a change, Burns transferred to Winthrop. His decision to “come home” was historic in and of itself: He is the highest-rated high school recruit to ever be a part of the Winthrop basketball program (82nd on ESPN Top 100).

His role has grown in each of his three years in Rock Hill, and that’s particularly true of his junior year. The big man is averaging 20.8 minutes a game — a substantial increase from the previous two seasons, when he averaged 15.7 and 17.5 minutes a game — and he’s also averaging 4.6 rebounds and 1.1 assists per game.

Other Eagles who made All-Big South

Burns wasn’t the only Eagle who earned All-Big South love on Tuesday.

Winthrop graduate transfer Pat Good was an honorable mention on the All-Big South team. Chase Claxton, for a second year in a row, finished second in Defensive Player of the Year voting. And Russell Jones earned Big South All-Academic team honors.

See full results of the All-Big South end-of-year awards here:

First Team (in order of points received): DJ Burns Jr., Winthrop; Drew Pember, UNC Asheville; Justin Hill, Longwood; John-Michael Wright, High Point; Isaiah Wilkins, Longwood.

Second Team: Bryson Mozone, USC Upstate; D’Maurian Williams, Gardner-Webb; Zack Austin, High Point; Rayshon Harrison, Presbyterian College; Jordan Gainey, USC Upstate.

Honorable Mention: Cedric Henderson Jr., Campbell; LJ Thorpe, UNC Asheville; Patrick Good, Winthrop; DeShaun Wade, Longwood; Lance Terry, Gardner-Webb.

All-Freshman Team: Zack Austin, High Point; Jordan Gainey, USC Upstate; Claudell Harris, Jr., Charleston Southern; Marquis Barnett, Presbyterian College; Taje Kelly, Charleston Southern.

Men’s Basketball All-Academic Team: Austin McCullough, Campbell; Lance Terry, Gardner-Webb; Emmanuel Izunabor, High Point; Zac Watson, Longwood; Kameron Langley, North Carolina A&T; Owen McCormack, Presbyterian; Shaquan Jules, Radford; Coty Jude, UNC Asheville; Josh Aldrich, USC Upstate; Russell Jones Jr., Winthrop.

Player of the Year: DJ Burns Jr., Winthrop.

Defensive Player of the Year: Drew Pember, UNC Asheville.

Coach of the Year: Griff Aldrich, Longwood.

Co-Freshman of the Year: Zack Austin, High Point; Jordan Gainey, USC Upstate.

Scholar-Athlete of the Year: Owen McCormack, Presbyterian.

This story was originally published March 1, 2022 at 11:27 AM.

Alex Zietlow

The Herald

Alex Zietlow writes about sports and the ways in which they intersect with life in York, Chester and Lancaster counties for The Herald, where he has been an editor and reporter since August 2019. Zietlow has won nine S.C. Press Association awards in his career, including First Place finishes in Feature Writing, Sports Enterprise Writing and Education Beat Reporting. He also received two Top-10 awards in the 2021 APSE writing contest and was nominated for the 2022 U.S. Basketball Writers Association’s Rising Star award for his coverage of the Winthrop men’s basketball team.