College basketball fans love to fall in love. Every spring, America looks not just for a Cinderella team that may make a run in the NCAA Tournament but for individual heroes to join the pantheon of March Madness greats. These are almost never the players who hear their names called early in the NBA Draft. Most of them, in fact, never get to play in the NBA at all. But they are beloved anyway, for what they did during one or two (or five or six) single-elimination games in college. The American fan also loves a player with an unusual physique, whether tall, short, thin, or portly. Something about the spectacle of an athlete who doesn’t look like an athlete has always captivated us. We’ve seen enough stars built like Greek gods.
And the breakout star of this year’s men’s tournament, DJ Burns, isn’t exactly Apollo (Creed or the god). Burns is listed at 6ft 9in and 275lbs, and is cuddly rather than sculpted (for context, the powerfully built LeBron James is the same height but 25lbs lighter). Not that it’s affected Burns’s play: he is a key cog for the Final Four-bound North Carolina State Wolfpack. As NC State have made their run as a No 11 seed, Burns has become the tournament’s hottest name. He has all the makings of a cult hero. More than that, he is two wins away from what would be one of the most shocking championship runs in US sports history.
