HPU women sweep Big South preseason hoops awards
Oct. 20—CHARLOTTE — High Point University dominated the Big South women's basketball preseason awards announced at the conference's media day on Wednesday.
The Panthers, which won the league tournament championship for the first time in March, were picked as preseason choice to win it again, and HPU guard Skyler Curran, last season's Player of the Year, was chosen preseason player of the year for the second straight time.
HPU received 11 first-place votes in balloting by the league's 12 coaches and finished with 143 points. Campbell was second at 121 and edged Longwood by two points. North Carolina A&T received the other first-place vote and had 114 points.
Gardner-Webb was fifth with Radford sixth. UNC Asheville and Presbyterain tied for seventh. Hampton was ninth, followed by USC Upstate, Winthrop and Charleston Southern.
Curran is HPU's first repeat preseason honoree since Emma Bockrath. Curran was first in the league last year in points scored at 514 and second in points per game at 17.7. She was first in 3-pointers made with 93, which was third nationally, and ranked seventh in the nation with 3.21 per game. She also averaged 7.2 rebounds, which was sixth in the league.
Curran received nine first-place votes and 108 points to lead balloting for Preseason All-Conference. Jenson Edwards of HPU was chosen to the second team.
On the men's side, defending champ Winthrop was the favorite to win the conference tournament in voting by head coaches and media members. Winthrop received 16 votes to eight for Campbell and two for new member North Carolina A&T.
Winthrop was chosen to win the South Division, receiving 23 of 26 first-place votes. UNC Asheville, the only league team to defeat the Eagles last year, was chosen second, followed by Gardner-Webb, Presbyterian, Charleston Southern and USC Upstate.
Campbell, which returns all five starters, was the favorite in the North Division, receiving 20 first-place votes. Longwood was second, followed by North Carolina A&T, Radford, Hampton and High Point.
D.J. Burns, Winthrop's center who was honorable mention all-conference last year as a freshman, was the preseason Player of the Year selection. Burns averaged 10.1 points in 15.7 minutes per game.but hit 11 of 12 shots in the Eagles tournament championship victory over Campbell.
He was named preseason player of the year as the top vote getter in balloting that determined the preseason all-conference team with 14 first-place votes and 199 points.
HPU junior guard John-Michael Wright was among those selected to the preseason first-team. He averaged 20.7 points, 5.2 rebounds and 3.1 assists last season.
Cedric Henderson of Campbell, Tajion Jones of UNC Asheville and Rayshon Harrison of Presbyterian were also chosen to the first team.
Kameron Langley of N.C. A&T, who starred at Southwest Guilford, was named to the second team.
