UNC Asheville’s Drew Pember and High Point head coach Alan Huss have been voted the 2023-24 Big South Conference Men’s Basketball Player of the Year and Coach of the Year, respectively, by the league’s head coaches and media panel, it was announced Tuesday afternoon by the conference office.
The panel voted HPU’s Juslin Bodo Bodo the Freshman of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year, while High Point’s Duke Miles was selected as the Newcomer of the Year.
Gardner-Webb’s Lucas Stieber was voted Scholar-Athlete of the Year by the league’s Sports Information Directors.
Pember is the first back-to-back Big South Player of the Year honoree since 2008-09, and just the seventh multiple winner in league history. The Knoxville, Tenn., native leads the Big South with a 20.4 scoring average, is second with 7.9 rebounds per game, and is sixth in assists at 3.4. Pember also ranks among the league leaders in free throws made (second – 210), field goal shooting (fifth – 46.8), free throw percentage (fourth – 84.7), blocked shots (tied for first – 1.9), and defensive rebounds (first – 6.6). In 16 Big South contests this season, Pember paced the conference with 21.9 points per game while grabbing 8.8 boards. He also made 86.6 percent from the charity stripe (116-134), tied for the most 3-pointers made per game (2.3), and snared 7.5 defensive caroms.
The Lou Henson Mid-Season Award Watch List honoree scored 20+ points in a game a league-high 14 times — including four 30-point efforts, tallied six 20-point, 10-rebound performances, and posted the Big South’s lone triple-double of the season with 11 points, 15 rebounds and 10 assists in Asheville’s victory over Appalachian State on Dec. 21. Pember received 14 first-place votes and 242 total points from the panel, ahead of Miles (209 points, one first-place vote) and High Point’s Kimani Hamilton (170 points).
Huss becomes just the second High Point head coach to win Big South Coach of the Year honors. The first-year head coach led the Panthers to the outright Big South regular-season championship with a 13-3 record — the second-most Big South wins by a coach in his first season in the league.
Huss also owns the Big South record for most overall wins by a new head coach in the conference with 24, and was the first new head coach to open 9-0 in Big South games. On Jan. 29, ESPN’s Men’s Basketball Power Rankings named Huss its Coach of the Week, while Collegeinsider.com named Huss as the recipient of the Joe B. Hall Midseason Award honoree as this year’s top first-time head coach in Division I.
High Point, which was predicted seventh in the league’s preseason poll, enters the Hercules Tires Big South Men’s Basketball Championship as the No. 1 seed, and is the conference leader in scoring (84.6), scoring margin (+10.2), free throw percentage (77.9), rebounds (40.0), defensive rebounds (27.1) and 3-pointers per game (8.5). In the conference season, the Panthers were tops with 83.9 points, +7.9 scoring margin, 79.7 percent from the charity stripe and a +7.0 rebounding margin.
Huss received 13 first-place votes and 43 points overall, ahead of Gardner-Webb’s Tim Craft (27 points, two first-place votes) and UNC Asheville’s Mike Morrell (13 points).
Bodo Bodo becomes the fourth Panther to earn Freshman of the Year honors, as well as the first freshman to be voted Defensive Player of the Year in the award’s history (since 2005-06). Bodo Bodo leads the Big South with 9.1 rebounds per game and 281 overall caroms, as well as 3.7 offensive rebounds per game, is tied for first with 1.9 blocked shots, and is second with 5.4 defensive boards. His overall rebound total is third-most by a Big South freshman in league history, while his per game average is currently second-best by a frosh all-time in conference annals.
Bodo Bodo averaged 10.7 rebounds in conference games — the lone player above 10.0, had league-bests of 29 blocked shots and 4.3 offensive rebounds, and was second with 6.4 defensive caroms. He averaged 6.1 points overall and was 79-of-124 from the field ( =63.7 percent). Bodo Bodo had four double-doubles and hauled in 10+ rebounds in a game a Big South-best 15 times this season — including two games with a league season-high 18. He received 14 first-place votes and 79 points overall, ahead of Presbyterian’s Kory Mincy (two first-place votes, 56 points) and Longwood’s Emanuel Richards (46 points).
In Defensive Player of the Year voting, Bodo Bodo received seven first-place votes and 35 points, just ahead of Pember (six first-place votes and 31 points) and Presbyterian’s Marquis Barnett and Winthrop’s Chase Claxton, who each finished with one first-place vote and 12 total points.
Miles is the first Big South Men’s Basketball Newcomer of the Year, which recognizes the top non-freshman transfer playing in the Big South for the first time. He appeared in 28 games for the Panthers with 25 starts and is second in the Big South with his team-leading 17.8 points per game.
Miles is shooting 53.9 percent from the field, has scored 20+ points in 10 games, and scored a career-high 32 points vs. Hofstra in the final game of the Gulf Coast Showcase. He has dished out 5+ assists in eight different outings and averages 3.6 assists per game overall. Miles has had multiple perfect games from the line and is shooting 80.5% this season (99-of-123).
A two-time Big South Player of the Week honoree this year, Miles was named to the 2023-24 Lou Henson Mid-Season Award Watch List. He contributed 17.1 points in conference games, as well as 1.5 steals. Miles collected 14 first-place votes and 47 points in Newcomer of the Year voting, followed by Charleston Southern’s A’lahn Sumler (two first-place votes and 23 points) and Winthrop’s K.J. Doucet and Presbyterian’s Samage Teel, who tied with 13 points each.
Stieber is a 4.00 student working on his Master of Sports Management. He is Gardner-Webb’s top 3-point shooter at 40.7 percent (46-of-113) and he finished the regular-season with 7.4 points per game (8.2 in conference). Stieber is one of two Runnin’ Bulldogs to start all 31 games this season, and he scored a season-high 20 points in Gardner-Webb’s victory over Longwood on Feb. 29.
The entire 2023-24 All-Conference team is as follows:
First-Team All-Conference
Drew Pember, UNC Asheville
Duke Miles, High Point
Kimani Hamilton, High Point
Kezza Giffa, High Point
Kelton Talford, Winthrop
Second-Team All-Conference
DaQuan Smith, Radford
Walyn Napper, Longwood
Marquis Barnett, Presbyterian
Caleb Robinson, Gardner-Webb
Trae Broadnax, USC Upstate
Honorable Mention All-Conference
DQ Nicholas, Gardner-Webb
Taje’ Kelly, Charleston Southern
RJ Johnson, Charleston Southern
Josh Banks, UNC Asheville
A’lahn Sumler, Charleston Southern
All-Freshman Team
Juslin Bodo Bodo, High Point
Kory Mincy, Presbyterian
Emanuel Richards, Longwood
Titas Sargiunas, High Point
Jaiden Thompson, Charleston Southern
All-Academic Team
Taje’ Kelly, Charleston Southern
Lucas Stieber, Gardner-Webb
Jesper Granlund, Longwood
Trevon Reddish-Rhone, Presbyterian
Chandler Turner, Radford
Fletcher Abee, UNC Asheville
Justin Bailey, USC Upstate
Alex Timmerman, Winthrop
Big South Conference
