High Point junior forward Danny Gathings has been named the 2004 Big South Conference Men's Basketball Player of the Year.

Gathings, from Winston-Salem, N.C., was the Big South's third-leading scorer (16.3 ppg) and second-leading rebounder (7.9 rpg), and led the League with 11 double-doubles (which ranks 16th nationally). He also ranked in the Big South's top ten in field-goal percentage (.529, T-4th), steals (1.67 spg, 8th), and free-throw percentage (.689, 9th).

Gathings is the first High Point player to win the award in the Panthers' six-year Big South tenure. He was joined on the All-Big South first team by Gabe Martin (Liberty), E.J. Gallup (Coastal Carolina), Jakob Sigurdarson (Birmingham-Southern) and Whit Holcomb-Faye (Radford).

Also on Monday, HPU senior forward Brent Halsch was named to the Big South's All-Academic Team.

Gathings becomes the second HPU player since the Panthers joined the League before the 1998-99 season to earn first-team All-Conference honors. Dustin Van Weerdhuizen was a first-team pick for the Panthers in 2001-02.

Gathings, who prepped at Parkland HS in Winston-Salem and Hargrave Military Academy and played his freshman season at Virginia Tech before transferring to HPU, was named to the All-Big South second team last season along with then-teammate Joe Knight.