PITTSBURGH — DJ Burns Jr. is holding court again. With a wide-toothed grin, North Carolina State's gregarious giant had reporters huddled near his locker the day before his improbable appearance in the second round of the NCAA Tournament against Oakland. He is amazed at what an incredible stage he has stepped onto. “That’s the great thing about March His Madness,” he says. “If there's something interesting, you'll find it every year around this time.'' In other words, now is the time to introduce previously unknown stars and fascinating stories to a national audience. So why did the American public fall in love with Burns this month, about a year later than the entire city of Raleigh, North Carolina?
“I'm 100 percent sure it's because of my size. If I were a skinny 240-year-old guy, I wouldn't have gotten any attention if I was doing this,” said the 6-foot-9 man. Barnes, who weighs more than 300 pounds, says, no matter what the official roster says. . He pats his stomach. “We're going to get rid of this, and we're getting rid of it now, but it's good that it's different and that it works. I can't say I'm leaning, but I think it's cool. It gave me a path. It gave me a platform that most people don't have because I'm unique.”
Barnes does something that few people his size can do, not that there are a lot of guys built like NFL linemen who even try to play basketball. From a baseline spin move to a silky-smooth left hook to a dime dropped from a double or triple team to the softest touch you want from a big man. “He's like a polar bear,” says NC State strength coach Pat Murphy. “And a ballerina.” In other words, a dancing bear. There's also a talking bear. Barnes has a mouth and he's not afraid to use it.
He said this after the Wolfpack stunned Duke in front of a raucous crowd in the ACC Tournament. They're not really rooting for us, so we'll move on. Thank you, that's fine. They were rooting for Duke not to win. There is a difference. ”
Some cracked at Barnes about his weight after Oakland fans mocked him during Barnes' pregame warm-ups on Saturday night, but he stopped and grinned as he stared at the screaming horde. “Keep talking,” he told them. “He's fat-shaming and it only turns him on,” says his mother, Takera. “Say thank you to them. When you call him a whopper, when you put him down, when you're ugly, you're just giving him jet fuel.”
After scoring nearly all of his goals against the Golden Grizzlies, he gave fans something. he pressed his finger to his lips, Shhhhh! He tilted his head to the side so he could see the smile and went back on the defensive. He played 42 minutes, had 24 points, 11 rebounds and four assists, and when Barnes stopped the game in overtime, one of the hecklers lamented, “This big motherfucker is going to beat us.” Also.
The crowd loves DJ Burns Jr. 😤 @pamyu0111 pic.twitter.com/ItFP3gg1la
— CBS Sports College Basketball 🏀 (@CBSSportsCBB) March 22, 2024
Burns' North Carolina State team won seven postseason games in 12 days, going from NIT trip to ACC Tournament champion and advancing to the Sweet 16 for the first time in nearly a decade. The Wolfpack will play Marquette, the No. 2 seed in the South, on Friday in Dallas. Burns, the ACC Tournament MVP, averaged 16.6 points, 4.6 rebounds and 3.0 assists while shooting 65 percent from the field in those seven wins. Although he was 23 years old and had been in college for six years, playing at the University of Tennessee and Winthrop University before that, appearing in 162 games, Barnes finally took the best basketball of his life.
This surge is especially rewarding for those who had some kind of intervention against him two months ago.
“It's great to see,” Murphy said. “That kid tried so hard. Now, he got agitated and had to be pulled and pushed and prodded. He's been really depressed since late January and started hitting a wall and was in a funk. That funk degraded him into a bare-bones guy for a little while. But then there was that meeting and a switch was flipped. We sat him down and said, We told him what was going to happen and how much we needed him, and he thanked us. He said, “I needed this.'' Because he knew it. ”
North Carolina State University assistant Kareem Richardson couldn't sleep. It was in the early hours of January 28th, after the loss to Syracuse. This was the only time all season that head coach Kevin Keatts did not start Barnes. The big man made just 5 of 14 shots in the game. He and his team were spinning their wheels.
“It was a known fact that he wasn't in the shape he needed, the conditioning he needed,” Richardson said. “And that night I sat in bed and said, 'This sucks. We have to try to hold him a little more accountable.'” The next morning, we put together a plan. I did. ”
With input from the program's academic staff, nutritionists, strength coaches, training staff, and coaches, as well as support from parents, Team DJ believes what it needs to do to get Peak DJ in time for the postseason. I've outlined exactly what's going on. Step one was to get the biggest person on campus to stop sleeping in bean bag chairs.
“He was on the move, trying to do everything himself. He wasn't getting enough rest,” Takera said. “I remember one of the coaches called me and said, 'Sir, sir. Burns, what's going on with DJ?' Everybody got together and said, 'We need all of him. “Yes,” he said. And DJ took it as a challenge. He said, “I have work to do.” A lot of people helped him from there and he just stepped up and did his job. We went there and bought him a bed and made sure we were doing our part. It was a whole team effort. ”
There was a strict plan, including additional conditioning and lifting, more intense basketball-specific training, and a stricter diet. Richardson texted Burns in the morning to confirm he was coming, and a nutritionist personally guided him through his workouts and healthy food choices for the day. “But to his credit, he agreed,” Richardson says. “If he doesn't agree, nothing works.” Previously, when Burns tried to do this himself, he would fast for a day, then late-night hunger pangs and junk food cravings “would get to him.” '' Murphy said. “And he's a superstar in Raleigh, right? So he's going to go wherever he wants to go and be the life of the party and eat the food.”
DJ Barnes Jr. became a fan favorite during the opening weekend of the NCAA Tournament. (Joe Sargent/Getty Images)
But give Barnes a challenge and he'll rise to it. During his redshirt season at Tennessee in 2018-19, the former four-star recruit underwent a body transformation in the Volunteers' signature “fat camp,” dropping more than 30 pounds and dropping to less than 240 pounds.
“It's a testament to his hard work. It was a grueling process,” Tennessee strength coach Garrett Medenwald said. “When it came to DJ, we always knew the talent, the scoring ability, the footwork. His thought process and how he's improved (since he left), not only from a basketball standpoint, but also from a maturity standpoint. It’s been really fun hearing how they’ve grown.”
Burns, the Big South's 2020 Freshman of the Year and Winthrop University's 2022 Player of the Year, recently purchased a necklace with a charm depicting a ray of sunshine poking out from behind a storm cloud. did. He now wears it everywhere, including during games.
“Just remember,” he says. “Even if it's raining, you can still get some sunshine. And understand that you don't necessarily have to feel great to get the job done.” Oddly enough, start that plan. And then there was a period where you couldn't score because of shitty things. And it's like, 'Damn, why am I doing this to play even worse?' But you have to be consistent. ”
In fact, it got worse before it got better. Burns scored a total of 12 points on just 5 of 13 shots in the first two games of Operation Feel the Burns. There were other dips as well. He scored a total of six points in the last game of February and the first game of March, against Florida State and North Carolina. The Wolfpack finished the regular season with seven losses in 11 games, but looked ready to go.
Then, as time expired, the next loss would be the last, the real breakthrough occurred. “It's exactly the miracle you want,” Burns says.
“I always told him, 'DJ, be the guy Keats scouted,'” his mother says. “The staff used to tell him, 'DJ, you're not going anywhere without you.' But he's what I would call an overcomer. He might have slumps or downtime, But he's very thoughtful and resilient. Once he assesses where he is, he's sure to come back even better. Now, what you're looking at right now is the model that Kevin Keats adopted. Finally, let us praise God.”
Barnes scored 27 points in the loss to Duke at the end of the regular season, 19 points in the ACC semifinal against Virginia, 20 points in the title game against UNC, and 16 points in the upset of Texas Tech in the NCAA first round. , arguably the best game of the 2019 season. The second round will be against Oakland. An aspiring rapper, he recorded a song about himself last year called “Beast Boy.”
His teammates all nodded in agreement with the chosen nickname.
“I play against him every day in practice,” junior forward Ben Middlebrooks said. “I feel the pain they feel when they play him on other teams. Once he gets going, there's no one in this country who can stop him.”
“Literally unguardable,” junior guard Jayden Taylor added. “I've never seen anyone with such skill in such a big body. Ever.”
“He's the best big in the country,” senior guard Casey Morsell said. “If you hate DJ, I don't know, there's something wrong with you. How can you hate the guy? He's great.”
Burns has learned a thing or two on his long and winding road to becoming a March favorite. First of all, if you're 6 to 9 years old, about 300 pounds, and you're pirouetting around a basketball court, people are going to talk to you. But more importantly, he says, listen more than you talk and work harder when no one is looking.
“The work that actually improves you is the work you do yourself,” he says.
And sometimes what you tell yourself is actually more important. You see, even the people who planned it aren't convinced that Barnes actually changed all that much physically. It probably wouldn't have been possible to log the nearly fresh 42 minutes he played in his high-stakes basketball game two months ago, but the bigger improvement happened between his ears.
“I feel like if I put a little effort into depositing money, I can withdraw it when I need to,” Richardson says. “Now he thinks he deserves it. If he does the work, he will be ready to receive his reward.”
(Top photo: Mark Goldman/AP)