Former VGCC star now playing Division I Basketball

The Vance-Granville Community College men’s basketball program is only entering its second year playing in the National Junior College Athletic Association, but it has already catapulted a player from the junior-college level to facing some of the nation’s top teams in NCAA Division I.

Bryan Burrell of Raleigh (pictured above) was a standout at VGCC in 2008-2009, and this season, he is on the team at Division I Gardner-Webb University , located in Boiling Springs, N.C. The 6’1″ junior is listed as a guard on the GWU roster. The GWU Runnin’ Bulldogs are scheduled to play a challenging schedule that includes national powerhouses like UNC (Nov. 23), Duke (Dec. 15) and Texas (Dec. 29). GWU is a member of the Big South Conference, which includes High Point University and UNC-Asheville as well as other four-year schools in Virginia and South Carolina.

Last season, Burrell led the VGCC Vanguards , and the conference, in assists and was third in NJCAA Division II nationwide in assists. He led the team in free throws made, and was third in scoring for the Vanguards, with 394 points on the season and 15.8 points per game. A College Transfer student at VGCC, Burrell also performed well in the classroom and was awarded an academic achievement scholarship. He graduated from VGCC in May with an Associate in Arts degree.

Burrell, who is majoring in Sports Management at GWU, said that VGCC prepared him both athletically and academically. “The teachers at Vance-Granville helped me tremendously and made the transition to the university level smooth,” Burrell said. “Vance-Granville also put me in a position to play Division I basketball, and Coach Avery Wilson helped me a lot with transferring to Gardner-Webb.” He added that Boiling Springs is a small, friendly town, “not too different from Henderson.”

Burrell is not the only VGCC player taking his game to another level this year. Mitchell Jeffries of Raleigh transferred to Methodist University in Fayetteville, while Dane Williams of Fayetteville is on the team at Lycoming College in Pennsylvania. Both schools compete in NCAA Division III. Former Vanguards Burrell and Jeffries could share the same court when Methodist plays Gardner-Webb on Nov. 21.