They yelled insults and invective with vigor, showering the sophomore on the floor with venom.
He had come into the game with impressive credentials, including a Big East Rookie of the Year award. He was averaging more than 22 points per game and was recognized as one of the top players in the country.
None of that, however, mattered last season when New Jersey native Troy Murphy returned for the first time to Rutgers, a school he had considered attending before choosing Notre Dame.
If it’s true that love and hate are flip sides of the same coin, then abandonment is cause enough to turn affection to antipathy. As one of the best players in the country–and one who doesn’t mind mixing it up inside–Murphy is subjected to heckling and harassment in almost every road arena in which he plays.
“Everywhere we go he expects that,” Irish point guard Martin Ingleby said.
But for the 8,211 who filled Louis Brown Athletic Center on the Rutgers campus that night in January 2000, the distaste was personal. Murphy was a traitor, a local boy who had spurned their ardent advances to play at Notre Dame.
That night they got their revenge, rattling Murphy into one of his worst games of the season. He scored 18 points but was goaded into a technical foul for shoving a Rutgers opponent. Worse, he fouled out with 1:26 remaining and had to watch the final 86 seconds of an ugly 76-51 loss from the bench.
There will be no repeat of last year, Murphy insists, when Notre Dame (16-5, 8-2 Big East) plays at Rutgers (10-11, 2-8) Wednesday night. This is a different, better Irish team, and Murphy is a more mature, more confident player.
“At first it bothered me,” Murphy acknowledged, having said at the time that he recognized a good many of the hecklers. “But now let them say what they want. It really doesn’t matter. Those fans would give a lot to switch places. They have a right to say what they want. But they would switch pretty quickly.”
Murphy, a Naismith Award finalist for national player of the year, will have to go it alone underneath against Rutgers. Forward Ryan Humphrey, whose inside presence has relieved much of the pressure on the Irish All-American, will miss the Rutgers game because of a sprained right ankle sustained in Sunday’s victory over West Virginia.
Humphrey is Notre Dame’s No. 2 scorer with a 14.9 average and is the leading rebounder at 9.3 per game. He has started all 21 games, and coach Mike Brey expects him back in the lineup for Sunday’s game with Seton Hall.
Brey also decided against disciplining sophomore guard Matt Carroll, who made an obscene gesture to the West Virginia crowd as the Irish players were being pelted with debris as they left the floor in Morgantown on Sunday.
“I said to him, `You can’t do that. That’s not who you are,'” Brey said.
