WASHINGTON — D.J. Burns Jr. turned to his parents, beaming. Dwight Sr. had a matching smile. Takela wasn’t smiling yet, but rather holding back tears while not counting her chickens … yet. If anyone knew not to assume anything until the clock hit zeroes in the ACC Tournament, it was NC State fans.
But somehow the team playing its fifth game in five games was the team surging to the finish line. The 50-50 balls? The key stops? The big buckets from places familiar and surprising? They all belonged to NC State.
And so when Burns Jr.’s job was done, after he had exited to an uproarious ovation and after his teammates had done the same, he had a simple message for his parents just before the buzzer sounded on an 84-76 win.
“I told you.”
What, exactly, had he told them?
“I told them last night that I was gonna give it my all,” he said. “I didn’t care how many points I scored, I didn’t care anything about that other stuff.”
He may not have cared about his points, but his team needed every one of his 20. In his 160th career game, he hit his first career 3-pointer — he had been 0 for 10 in his career — and tied a career high with seven assists. And he did it all with a smile on his face.
“I tell anyone: When I stop having fun with it, I’ll be done, and if I can’t smile, it’s probably not something I’m gonna do,” he said. “Life is all about having fun. It just happens to be through basketball. I’m gonna be a happy person regardless.”
Burns’ 20 points were second only to DJ Horne, who posted 29 and also had his family in the crowd. They donned “Why Not Us?” T-shirts. It was the phrase Horne said after a 74-69 upset over Duke in the quarterfinals, and his mother Tivona knew she had to make some spur-of-the-moment apparel.
“It hasn’t even hit me yet,” she said as the team waited to load the bus. “Happy, proud of them. They accomplished a lot. Nobody thought they would be here. Tuesday to…
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