Murphy Adds More Honors
Frank Vitovitch
March 8, 2000

South Bend, Ind - Note Dame sophomore Troy Murphy added another honor to a fast growing list of awards and achievements he has gained in the last two years.  Yesterday, Murphy was named Big East player of the year, the second Domer to achieve this award (Pat Garrity won the honor in 1996-97).

Murphy was an obvious choice as the Big East Player of year since he was the first person to ever lead the conference in both rebounding (10.5 per game) and scoring (21.7 per game)  in the same season.  On top of that, he was the foundation for Notre Dame's basketball team the past two seasons.  He lead the team in scoring in almost every game, and carried the team on his back at times. 

Last season Murphy was the Big East Rookie of the year as well as being on the 2nd Team All Big East team.  Earlier this week he joined Eton Thomas, Khalid El-Amin, Jason Hart, and Eric Barkley on the 1st Team All Big East Team.   Thomas and Murphy were the only two unanimous selections to the teams.

Throughout the season Murphy totaled 18 double doubles and 6 Big East Player of the Week awards, both were league leaders and the 6 player of the week awards tied a league record.  He set career highs in points (35 against St. Francis) and rebounds (18 against St. John's) this year en route to being named the player of the year.

Other award winners were Etan Thomas of Syracuse as the Big East Defensive Player of the Year, Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim, Troy Bell of Boston College won the Big East Rookie of the Year Award, and Shaheen Holloway of Seton Hall and Ricardo Greer of Pittsburgh shared the Most Improved Player award.

Murphy was the only player from Notre Dame to be on any of the All Big East Teams or All Rookie Teams.  Matt Carroll played very well for a freshman and started 22 of 30 games while averaging 9.8 points per game, but Carroll did not make the team.

Murphy is also on of Dick Vitale's three finalists for his player of the year award winner.  Vitale loves Notre Dame, but Murphy is that good and has a real shot at winning the player of the year award.  Kenyan Martin of Cincinnati will be hard to beat for the award, but Murphy played just as good this season.