Now in his senior year, the quiet young man from Aberdeen is helping keep the Monarchs in contention for a NCAA Division III Tournament bid.
The two-time All-Dixie Conference selection leads the Monarchs in scoring this season with a 14.4 per game average and became the school’s 16th player to exceed the career 1,000-point mark three weeks ago.
His team finished the regular-season with a 10-4 conference mark, and the second seed in the conference tournament that begins Thursday at Methodist.
Long before he enrolled at Methodist, the 1997 Pinecrest graduate was known as a player who let his basketball do his talking for him. He played six years of AAU ball beginning as an 11-year-old on the first Sandhills Warrior AAU team coached by Garrye Chavis.
“He was always taller than the other kids,” Chavis recalled. “He was a good athlete with a good disposition. He was low-key, but he produced. He liked to win and he practiced hard.”
His mother, Rosa Byrd, recalled a game he played in Charlotte as a 14-year-old when he scored 41 points. She was also a basketball player as are his sisters Tequila, 17 and Kearra, 13.
Tequila grabbed 15 and 14 rebounds in recent games for the Pinecrest junior varsity that was 14-4 this year. Kearra is a member of the team at Southern Middle School.
“He has always been peaceful in his personality and he listens,” his mother said.
Byrd was a four-year starter for Pinecrest coach Terry Davis and an all-conference selection three times. He led the Patriots to the playoffs in three of those years.
His senior year statistics were similar to his current ones with the Monarchs. He averaged 16 points and six rebounds per game.
Davis remembers him being heavily recruited by North Carolina A & T, UNC-Pembroke, UNC-G and others — and as a person of good character.
“He doesn’t get too up or too down,” the Patriot coach recalls. “He doesn’t have a whole lot to say — he just goes about his business. He was very coachable, and because of that, he got better and better each year.”
“He always taught discipline,” Byrd said of his former coach. “He wanted you to be on time and do well in the classroom. Everything was on a schedule and he wanted you to stick to that schedule. That’s what I learned from him — discipline and putting the team before yourself.”
It was not surprising then, that he was unaware he was closing in on the 1,000-point milestone until he read about it in the newspaper just before the Jan. 26 home game against Shenandoah University.
Needing 17 points, he rarely got an offensive touch late in the first half as the Hornets took a six-point lead into the break. Methodist coach David Smith said after the game that the second-half strategy was to change that.
“You’ve got to,” Smith said. “He’s the man inside, so we have to get the ball to him.”
Byrd plays almost exclusively with his back to the basket in the Monarch offense, giving up inches to almost everyone who defends him.
Upon receiving the ball, he uses a quick first step and his strength to get inside for the basket or to draw a foul.
“They were playing in front of me and denying me real hard,” Byrd said. “I had to find a way to get the ball. We started penetrating a little bit and they had to leave me to help out.”
He started a run of 12 points in the first five minutes of the second half with a baby hook. The 73-percent free-throw shooter was then fouled in the act and hit one of two. A putback, a steal and a basket, and a three-point play off a feed from teammate Arthur Hatch got him to 1,000. He finished the 74-67 Methodist victory with 23 points and 14 rebounds.
The following afternoon, he had another double-double at home in an 80-64 loss to nationally ranked Christopher Newport University.
C.J. Wollum, the longtime coach of the Captains, talked about his adversary after the game.
“The ultimate compliment is that I’ll be thankful to see him in street clothes next year,” the CNU coach said. “We may have to face him two more times depending on how the conference tournament goes. He has been a great player for four years.”
One of the things that has distinguished Byrd the basketball player, at the prep and college levels, has been his shooting accuracy from the field.
Taking most of his shots from within 10 feet of the basket, and rarely forcing them, he has connected on at least 54 percent of his shots from the field in each of his years at Pinecrest and Methodist. In his junior year for the Patriots, his field goal percentage was 74 percent.
This year for the Monarchs, he is knocking down 57 percent of his shots following seasons of 61 percent and 63 percent that put him among the Division III leaders.
“You try to keep him from getting the ball, because if he does, he’s just tough to stop,” Wollum said. “He causes a match-up problem because if you put a taller player on him, he may not be quick enough and if you put a smaller man on him, he’s too strong for him. He’s just got a lot of dimensions to his game.”
When his college days are over, Byrd is looking forward to a career in hospital administration.
A business health major, he is scheduled to graduate in December. This summer, he is taking an internship at Cape Fear Valley Hospital.
Demarkus Byrd has been the go-to guy on the basketball court at Methodist College for some time now. The quiet young man from Aberdeen has certainly left his mark.
“He is one of those guys we love to see leave,” Wollum, the CNU coach said. “We have a lot of respect for him.”
