Everybody Loves DJ Burns

Not all NCAA tournament Cinderellas are created equal. Any team with a double-digit seed making a run to the Final Four provides an occasion to celebrate the, ahem, madness of March, but it's the players on that team who ultimately decide just how memorable that run will be. A 12-seed with a bunch of interchangeable, faceless shooters who get hot from behind the arc at just the right time is not destined to live long in the memory. But the 11-seeded NC State Wolfpack, who are headed to the Final Four after upsetting Duke on Sunday, are not that kind of forgettable team. That's because they have DJ Burns. Burns, a fifth-year senior who played three seasons at Winthrop before transferring to NC State in 2022, is the ideal type of player to lead a surprise tournament run. He's a double-wide 6-foot-9, and his ground-bound interior game is as immediately charming as it is effective. In NC State's decisive 76-64 win on Sunday, Burns spent the whole game backing down, pivoting, and drop-stepping his way to 29 points on 13-of-19 shooting. That he only found time to grab four rebounds between all the lefty floaters only added to the spectacle. This man did not come to the NCAA tournament to jump. He came to get buckets.