Raleigh native Horne leads NC State to Final Four
DJ Horne’s childhood in and around Raleigh was similar to that of a lot of Triangle-area kids, which is to say it was one of playing basketball and growing up with a certain kind of dream — that of playing for one of the three local ACC schools. Well, maybe not one of them, necessarily.
“I will say I never liked UNC, ever,” Horne, the N.C. State graduate student guard, said here Friday, the day before he was about to continue one of the more unlikely basketball journeys that anyone could conjure. “So, just to put that out there.”
A little later, inside State’s locker room for the Final Four — decorated with those desertthemed Final Four logos; decked out with a lot of Wolfpack paraphernalia, too — Horne at first didn’t want to say who his favorite college team had been. But, “actually,” he said after a moment, “I can say that now.”
And so came an admission: “I was a Duke fan. And they’re home now.”
Home now, thanks to the Wolfpack’s victory over the Blue Devils last weekend in the NCAA Tournament South Regional final. That triumph sent State here, to the Arizona desert, and completed part of one homecoming for Horne. He spent the past two seasons in nearby Tempe, playing for Arizona State.
His entire past season at N.C. State, meanwhile, has been another kind of homecoming. Of all of State’s players, the majority of whom began their college careers somewhere else, Horne’s has been the most circuitous and the one, now, that is the most full circle.
He grew up in and around Raleigh. Went off to college for two seasons at Illinois State. Transferred from there to Arizona State. And then from there to N.C. State, which never recruited him out of high school. It has been a long journey — an odyssey of sorts for a player who once didn’t think he was good enough for this level — let alone good enough to play a leading role on a Final Four team.
“Honestly,” he said, “knowing what my game was back in high school — I know I wasn’t a Power Five player.”
The evidence supports his assertion. So off the recruiting radar was
Horne that there’s not even a photograph of him attached to his profile on 247sports.com, a website that extensively covers college football and basketball recruiting. There’s barely any information at all about him. Only that Illinois State and Saint Louis offered him scholarships. And that he chose Illinois State.
And that’s pretty much it.
So not only did N.C. State not recruit him. Hardly anyone did.
And now look at him: One part of the Wolfpack’s starting backcourt in the Final Four. State’s leading scorer. A hometown kid who has helped lead his hometown college team to heights it hadn’t experienced in more than 40 years.
“Everybody has their own paths,” Horne said of his journey.
Horne “bounced around a little bit,” he said, and spent part of his childhood in North Raleigh
and other areas along the Raleigh and Cary line, near the Crossroads shopping center. He played basketball for Cary High and spent a lot of afternoons and nights at the Cary YMCA and inside the Herbert C. Young Center, right in downtown Cary.
He’d go to those places after school, he said, and “we would just kick it in there.” Then the pickup games would start. Who knows where some of those guys are now, those who offered Horne competition at the Y or in the local rec center — but chances are they weren’t around here Friday, preparing to play on college basketball’s brightest stage.
Horne’s story is in part a heartwarming one about a hometown kid making good. In another way, it’s a perfect example of how, at its best, the transfer portal can work to a player’s benefit. Here was one without much of a shot to play college basketball at the highest level. Who had to prove himself. Who did, at Illinois State. And then at Arizona State.
And then, in his final year of collegiate eligibility, came back home to play for the big ACC school.
“Getting him back to Raleigh, I thought that was very important,” Kevin Keatts, the Wolfpack coach, said of Horne. In him, Keatts saw a talent who could help ease the loss of Terquavion Smith and Jarkel Joiner, who made up State’s starting backcourt a season ago.
“I knew I couldn’t replace both of those guys, but I had to go out and try to replace one,” Keatts said. And of Horne: “We needed him. He’s done a great job for us.”
Horne has formed one half of Team DJ for State. There’s Burns, on the inside. There’s Horne, on the perimeter, with his ability to shoot and penetrate defenses. Together they’ve made a formidable duo, one that presents challenges defenses don’t face all the time. Horne has a quickness and a shot-creating ability that makes him particularly challenging to defend. He’s elusive and creative.
And yet the player people see now, doing what he’s done during his time at State, is hardly the player he was at Cary High or at Trinity Christian Academy, in Fayetteville. Or even at Illinois State a few years ago. The journey he has been on, he said, is one that has molded him into the player he is today. He didn’t start at this level, as some do. He had to work at it. And work at it.
What changed for him, that allowed this kind of progression?
“Just honestly, that happening,” he said of not being good enough to be recruited by State, or any other ACC school. “Me having to swallow that pill . ... Having to swallow that, and take that long route. Going to a school that I thought I was, you know — better than.”
He had to take each step, with one leading to the other. No shortcuts. No fast tracks.
His recruiting profile is practically blank online. The best of the best high school players are fivestar prospects. Many other high-level ones are four star prospects. Many more very good players are only three-star prospects. Coming out of high school, Horne had zero stars. He was the kind of prospect who, if he had committed to any power school (if such an offer to do so existed) its fans would’ve responded with: “Who?”
And now look: that former zero-star recruit is State’s leading scorer. The guy with no major offers out of high school is here, on this stage. A player who spent many an afternoon playing in the local Y, and a downtown Cary rec center, has helped lead his hometown college team to the Final Four. Stories like this aren’t supposed to happen in real life. Horne knows that much.
But it’s happening. It’s here.
He has turned on the TV to see himself on ESPN. To see news shows talking about the Wolfpack.
He and his teammates went through a shootaround at State Farm Stadium on Friday, the N.C. State band blaring the fight song; a lower bowl full of State fans screaming; Keatts being interviewed by the CBS crew, and then Horne and Burns — DJ and DJ — walking over for some time with that crew themselves. Grant Hill was waiting with a fist bump for both.
Just a few basketball players, talking the big game on Saturday; talking the Final Four. And who would’ve thought, given where Horne’s journey began, back on those rec courts back home?
“It’s crazy, man,” he said, and there was still more to come.
Andrew Carter: 919-829-8944, @_andrewcarter