Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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WHERE HAVE YOU GONE? The recent graduate is the newest member in Notre Dame's Ring of Honor BY LOU SOMOGYI T he Notre Dame record books show that in Troy Murphy's three seasons at the school, the men's basketball team made it to the NCAA Tourna- ment one time and won only one game there. History shows that over the long run, Murphy's impact was much more far reaching. This Jan. 23, 15 years after his final game with the Fighting Irish before heading to the NBA after his junior year, Murphy's impact was honored at halftime during Notre Dame's victory versus Boston College at the Purcell Pavilion. From a pure numbers standpoint, Murphy had few peers in Notre Dame lore, but the honor was just as much about helping bring the Notre Dame basketball operation out from the wil- derness. The 1990s were the darkest days in program annals. From 1990-98 it was 118-144, finishing under .500 in six of those nine seasons. Notre Dame finally had to acknowledge that its indepen- dence status was destroying it inter- nally. Thus, it joined the powerful Big East for the 1995-96 season. Yet even with former Big East Player of the Year Pat Garrity at power for- ward in 1997-98, Notre Dame finished his senior year 13-14 overall and 7-11 in the Big East. Minus Garrity in 1998- 99, even worse results seemed to be on the way. HELP ON THE WAY That's where the freshman class with Murphy, David Graves and Har- old Swanagan (current director of bas- ketball operations for the Irish) came in. The 1999 Big East Rookie of the Year and two-time Big East Player of the Troy Murphy, 1998-2001 Power Forward Murphy led the Irish in scoring and rebounding in each of his three seasons, with career bests of 22.7 points and 10.3 boards per game as a sophomore. PHOTO COURTESY NOTRE DAME MEDIA RELATIONS