burns at sdsu

socalogo.gif (8739 bytes)
SoCalHoops Recruiting News

Evan Burns Enrolls At
San Diego State--(Sept. 12, 2002)

One day after UCLA issued a press release announcing that Evan Burns (6'-8" F) from Fairfax, a McDonald's All-American selection this past season, would not enroll at UCLA "because he did not meet NCAA initial eligibility requirements," San Diego State has issued its own official announcment that Burns has enrolled there.

This is interesting on a couple of levels, not the least of which is that if the UCLA press release was accurate, Burns is still going to have to battle with the NCAA clearninghouse in order to become eligible to play this season. According to information we've received from sources with access to Mountain West Conference bylaws, apparently the MWC (the conference in which SDSU is a member) this year voted to not permit partial-qualifiers to become eligible for competition. Whether that information is correct or not is something that we're still trying to verify, but one thing is for certain: Evan Burns is now enrolled at San Diego State, and it's a school that has been recruiting him for just about as long as UCLA had recruited him. This summer at the Say No League, we had a chance to speak with Burns and his parents, and we learned then that up until the day Burns signed his NLI with UCLA, he was vacillating and had almost originally signed with SDSU rather than UCLA, and consistent with the reports yesterday in the LA Times and the Daily News, we're not at all surprised to learn about Evan enrolling at San Diego.

Here's the press release from San Diego State University, issued earlier today:

Evan Burns Enrolls at San Diego State
McDonald's All-American begins classes at San Diego State

Sept. 12, 2002

SAN DIEGO - Evan Burns, a 6-8, 220-pound forward from Los Angeles, has enrolled in classes at San Diego State head coach Steve Fisher confirmed Thursday.

Burns, a McDonald's All-American while at Fairfax High, was on campus and attended classes on Thursday. His eligibility for the
2002-03 season is still to be determined by the NCAA Clearinghouse.

Burns, an athletic scorer, participated in two national prep all-star games. On April 11, he played in the Jordan Capital Classic in
Washington D.C. and on April 4, he was a starter on the West squad at the McDonald's High School All-American game in New York City. Five major recruiting publications rank him among the top 20 prospects in the country.

"Evan is a multi-dimensional player with the ability to score in a variety of ways," Fisher said. "He played at an extremely high level at Fairfax High so we know he is fundamentally sound. We are excited to have him at San Diego State."

As a senior this past season, Burns averaged 22.7 points and 10.5 rebounds for coach Harvey Kitani while leading Fairfax to the Los Angeles City finals. In addition to earning prep All-American honors, he was a third-team Parade All-America selection, all-state selection, Los Angeles Times Central City Player of the Year and was nominated for California Mr. Basketball. Entering his senior campaign, Burns was named a third-team All-American and first-team Los Angeles All-Metro by Street & Smith's, the number three small forward in the nation by Athlon, the number 10 player in the country by Basketball News, the number 11 player nationally by Hoop Scoop, 12th-ranked player nationally by Lindy's, the 13th-ranked player by theInsider.com, the
14th-rated player by The Sporting News and the 17th-top prospect by All-Star Report.

As a junior in 2000-01, Burns averaged 23.5 points, 8.3 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 2.1 blocked shots a game.