UNC Asheville Star Drew Pember
Joins NC College Hoops Legends
As 2x Conference Player Of The Year
By David Glenn
North Carolina Sports Network
UNC Asheville star Drew Pember just joined an exclusive list of luminaries that includes some of the greatest basketball players in North Carolina history.
Pember, a 6-foot-11 senior forward for the Bulldogs, this week received the 2024 Big South Conference Player of the Year honor. He also was the league’s Player of the Year in 2023, when he led his team to the conference championship and the program’s fifth all-time appearance in the NCAA Tournament.
As a multi-time conference player of the year, Pember joined an awe-inducing list of North Carolina-based college stars that also includes NC State’s David Thompson (ACC), Wake Forest’s Tim Duncan (ACC), Duke’s JJ Redick (ACC) and Davidson’s Steph Curry (SoCon), among others.
Pember has had an extremely unusual college journey.
A high school superstar in Knoxville, Tenn., Pember signed with hometown Tennessee but saw very limited playing time (about three minutes per game) during his two seasons with coach Rick Barnes and the Volunteers.
After transferring to UNC Asheville, where his former high school teammate Trent Stephney has been a five-year contributor for coach Mike Morrell, Pember almost immediately became a star. He now has earned first-team All-Big South honors in all three of his seasons with the Bulldogs.
In 2022-23, Pember became the first player in Big South history to be named the Preseason Player of the Year, postseason Player of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year and Tournament MVP in the same season.
Pember’s extended video visit earlier this week with multi-time North Carolina Sportscaster of the Year David Glenn, who now hosts the award-winning David Glenn Show exclusively on the North Carolina Sports Network, is linked at the bottom of this article.
MULTI-TIME CONFERENCE PLAYERS OF THE YEAR
(North Carolina-Based NCAA D1 Players Only)
Player, School, Conference, POY Seasons
Dickie Hemric, Wake Forest, ACC, 1954/1955
Len Chappell, Wake Forest, ACC, 1961/1962
Fred Hetzel, Davidson, SoCon, 1963/1964/1965
Larry Miller, North Carolina, ACC, 1967/1968
Mike Maloy, Davidson, SoCon, 1969/1970
David Thompson, NC State, ACC, 1973/1974/1975
Joe Binion, North Carolina A&T, MEAC, 1982/1983/1984
Danny Ferry, Duke, ACC, 1988/1989
Frankie King, Western Carolina, SoCon, 1994/1995
Tim Duncan, Wake Forest, ACC, 1996/1997
Josh Pittman, UNC Asheville, Big South, 1997/1998
Brett Blizzard, UNC Wilmington, CAA, 2002/2003
JJ Redick, Duke, ACC, 2005/2006
Arizona Reid, High Point, Big South, 2007/2008
Stephen Curry, Davidson, SoCon, 2008/2009
Jake Cohen, Davidson, SoCon, 2012/2013
De’Mon Brooks, Davidson, SoCon, 2012/2014
John Brown, High Point, Big South, 2014/2016
Isaiah Miller, UNC Greensboro, SoCon, 2020/2021
Drew Pember, UNC Asheville, Big South, 2023/2024