The senior basketball star, an All-Landmark Conference first-team pick, on his hoops lineage, his adjustment to Drew and grading Obama.
By Christopher Hann
You have a lot of great basketball players in your family, including your cousin, Eric Murdock, who played nine seasons in the NBA. Those must have been some brutal pickup games.
Photo by Bill Cardoni.
When you’re coming from that lineage, whatever you do, it could be better. If you had a 50-point game, you could always do better. There’s a lot of trash talk. And there’s a lot of never giving up. That’s what they taught me.
You attended two other colleges for a year apiece before coming to Drew, where you weren’t even expecting to play. What happened?
I walked on at Rutgers. [Former head coach] Fred Hill told me, “You’re a good player, but we got these scholarship players, and I’m going to play them.” I was recruited to go to Idaho State. It was a good situation, but basketball just didn’t fall [into place] as I had planned. When I came to Drew, I actually knew the assistant coach, and he was like, “You’re a pretty good player. You should just play.” It was the best thing I ever did, because I had a great year.
The team rebounded last season from a rough start. How did that come together?
We started off the season 4 and 10. We were headed in the wrong direction. Coach [Darryl Keckler] told us we have a good team, we just have to get it clicking. I said I’m just going to do what I have to do to get the team winning. We got one win, two wins. It was a snowball effect. Next thing you know, we won nine in a row. We just made a conscious effort to play harder.
As a political science major, what’s your assessment of President Obama?
With all the criticism, he’s handling himself well. This Osama thing definitely helps his chances, in my opinion, to get a second term. If I had to give him a grade, I’d give him a B minus/B.