Big South Announces 2020-21 Men's Basketball Preseason Honors
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (www.BigSouthSports.com) – Charleston Southern senior guard/forward Phlandrous Fleming Jr. (Athens, Ga.) has been voted the 2020-21 Big South Conference Men’s Basketball Preseason Player of the Year by the league’s head coaches and media panel, it was announced this morning. Fleming is the first Charleston Southern student-athlete voted Preseason Player of the Year.
Fleming was the 2019-20 Big South Defensive Player of the Year, as well as a First-Team All-Big South selection and NABC District 3 honoree after averaging 17.7 points and a league-high 8.7 rebounds. He ranked among the league leaders in scoring (4th), assists (4th – 3.8), free throw percentage (5th – 77.9), steals (13th – 1.3) and blocked shots (3rd – 1.5). Fleming was tops in the Big South with 7.1 defensive rebounds per game -- 2.0 more than the next closest player, and recorded career-highs in blocks (47) and steals (40). The first player in Big South history to record a triple-double in a conference tournament game (14 points, 11 rebounds, 12 assists vs. Presbyterian on March 3), Fleming set single-game personal bests of 34 points and 15 boards (twice) in 2019-20, and his league-leading 13 double-doubles featured seven 20-point, 10-rebound performances. In 18 Big South games last season, Fleming averaged 21.5 points (3rd), 9.2 rebounds (1st), 7.8 defensive rebounds (1st), 4.2 assists (5th), 1.5 blocked shots (4th), 47.0 percent from the field (7th) and 76.3 percent from the charity stripe (8th). He received 19 first-place votes and 228 total points in the voting to earn the top spot on the preseason All-Conference team.
2020-21 Big South Conference Men’s Basketball Preseason All-Conference Team
First-Team
Phlandrous Fleming Jr., Charleston Southern, Sr., G/F (Athens, Ga.)
D.J. Burns Jr., Winthrop, R-Soph., F/C (Rock Hill, S.C.)
DeVon Baker, UNC Asheville, Jr., G (Dayton, Ohio)
Chandler Vaudrin, Winthrop, R-Sr., G (Uniontown, Ohio)
Jaheam Cornwall, Gardner-Webb, Sr., G (Brooklyn, N.Y.)
Second-Team
Tommy Bruner, USC Upstate, Soph., G (Columbia, S.C.)
LJ Thorpe, UNC Asheville, R-Jr., F (West Palm Beach, Fla.)
John-Michael Wright, High Point, Soph., G (Fayetteville, N.C.)
Everette Hammond, USC Upstate, Jr., G (Silver Spring, Md.)
Kareem Reid, Gardner-Webb, Soph., F (Queens, N.Y.)
Burns was the 2019-20 Big South Freshman of the Year as well as a Second-Team All-Big South honoree. He led the Big South in field goal percentage with a 58.3 clip, was second on the team with 11.9 points per game -- which increased to 13.2 points in Big South contests in just 18.4 minutes per outing. A Collegeinsider.com Kyle Macey Freshman All-American, Burns was a five-time Big South Freshman of the Week selection and scored a career-high 23 points in 20 minutes at Charleston Southern on Jan. 30.
Baker was a Second-Team All-Conference selection a season ago. He finished fifth in the conference with a team-high 16.5 points per game, sixth in field goal percentage (45.1) and sixth in free throw percentage (76.6). Baker, who was a member of the 2018-19 Big South All-Freshman Team, surpassed 1,000 career points in 2019-20 to become just the sixth sophomore in Big South history to reach the milestone.
Vaudrin was also a Second-Team All-Big South honoree in 2019-20, and finished second in the league with 5.8 assists to rank 26th nationally. His 191 overall assists were 16th-most in Division I, and he issued a career-high 15 assists against High Point on Feb. 29 -- one of his three 10-assist games last year. Vaudrin also ranked 10th in the Big South with 5.8 rebounds, and played a key role with 19 points off the bench in Winthrop’s win at No. 18 Saint Mary’s.
Cornwall earned Honorable Mention All-Conference honors last year as he was the Big South leader in three-point percentage (44.4) and three-pointers per game (2.7). He averaged 13.1 points and 3.3 assists in 32 games last season -- and closed out the final eight games of the season with 15.3 points and a 56.3 clip from beyond the arc. Cornwall averaged 3.8 assists and 13.6 points during the Big South season.
The Preseason All-Conference Second-Team features two additional returning All-Conference honorees in Thorpe (Honorable Mention) and Wright (Honorable Mention, All-Freshman Team), additional All-Freshman Team members in Bruner and Reid, as well as the league’s top free throw shooter from last season (Hammond).