April 2, 2006
BOSTON – University of Notre Dame senior co-captains Megan Duffy (Dayton, Ohio/Chaminade-Julienne) and Courtney LaVere (Ventura, Calif./Buena) were honored as part of the State Farm/Jostens/Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) Awards Luncheon, held Sunday afternoon at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston. Duffy received the Frances Pomeroy Naismith Award, while LaVere earned the Robin Roberts/WBCA Broadcasting Scholarship Award, as Notre Dame was the lone school to have multiple honorees recognized at this year’s banquet.
Duffy was lauded as the recipient of the 2006 Frances Pomeroy Naismith Award, presented annually to the nation’s top senior women’s basketball player standing 5-foot-8 or under by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. The All-America guard is the second Irish player after Niele Ivey (2001) to receive the honor, and Notre Dame becomes the third school in the 23-year history of the award to boast multiple winners, joining Penn State (Suzie McConnell – 1988; Helen Darling – 2000) and Johns Hopkins (Amy Dodrill – 1995; Angie Arnold – 1998) in that elite class.
Duffy ranked among the top 10 in the BIG EAST Conference this season in scoring (7th – 15.6 ppg.), assists (8th – 4.13 apg.), steals (tie-6th – 1.97 spg.), free throw percentage (1st – .888), three-pointers made per game (6th – 1.93) and assist/turnover ratio (9th – 1.72). She also is 10th in the nation in free throw percentage (as of March 28), marking the second consecutive year she is among the top 10 nationally in that category, and her .888 mark was just shy of her own single-season school record (.895) that she set in 2004-05. In addition, Duffy scored in double figures 26 times in 30 games this season, including each of her final 15 games, the longest such streak by a Notre Dame player since Ruth Riley had 22 consecutive double-digit scoring games during the Irish national championship season of 2000-01.
In addition to the Frances Pomeroy Naismith Award, Duffy was presented with numerous other honors this season. She was tapped as an All-American by three organizations (second team by Full Court Press, honorable mention by Kodak/WBCA and Associated Press) and was an ESPN The Magazine First Team Academic All-American, the second Irish women’s basketball player ever to be so honored. Furthermore, she was a unanimous first-team all-BIG EAST pick (her second consecutive first-team citation), the BIG EAST/Aeropostale Scholar-Athlete of the Year, a two-time BIG EAST Player of the Week (Jan. 23 and Feb. 27) and a three-time BIG EAST Weekly Honor Roll choice.
Duffy ranks among the top 10 in school history in 12 career categories, most notably free throw percentage (2nd – .859), where she is 15th in NCAA history. She also is 13th in the Irish record books with 1,290 career points, and started 94 of her final 95 Notre Dame games, including a career-ending streak of 67 in a row, dating back to the beginning of the 2003-04 season.
Duffy currently holds a 3.555 cumulative grade-point average in the College of Arts and Letters, where she is pursuing a double major in psychology and computer applications. She has earned Dean’s List honors in each of the past four semesters, including a 3.917 GPA in the spring 2005 term and a 3.821 GPA in the recently-completed fall 2005 semester.
The Frances Pomeroy Naismith Award is named for the daughter-in-law of the game’s inventor, Dr. James Naismith. A panel of representatives from the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) selects the recipient. To earn the award, the recipient must demonstrate leadership, character, loyalty, all-around basketball ability and excellence in the classroom. Past honorees have included Connecticut’s Jennifer Rizzotti (1996), Colorado State’s Becky Hammon (1999), Baylor’s Sheila Lambert (2002), Tennessee’s Kara Lawson (2003) and last year’s winner, Tan White of Mississippi State.
LaVere is the first Irish player ever to be chosen for the Robin Roberts/WBCA Broadcasting Scholarship Award, a $4,500 honor that is presented annually to one women’s college basketball player who intends to pursue graduate work and a career in sports communications/journalism.
This season, the veteran forward led Notre Dame in field goal percentage (.509) and blocked shots (1.6 bpg.), ranking fifth in the BIG EAST in the latter category. She also was third on the team in scoring (8.8 ppg.). She concluded her career fifth in school history with 146 blocks and 1.2 blocks per game, while also standing 18th in the Notre Dame record books with 1,150 points.
In the classroom, LaVere maintains a 3.1 cumulative grade-point average in the College of Arts and Letters, where she is pursuing a double major in film, television & theater and computer applications. She was a BIG EAST Academic All-Star Team selection last year and is poised to be a repeat choice this season. In the summer of 2004, LaVere broke into the broadcasting industry with an internship in the sports department at WNDU-TV, the NBC affiliate in South Bend.
Among the past winners of the Robin Roberts/WBCA Broadcasting Scholarship Award is Oklahoma’s Stacey Dales. The former All-America guard (and current member of the WNBA’s Chicago Sky) has parlayed the honor into a blossoming broadcasting career at ESPN, where she serves as one of the primary studio analysts on that network’s extensive collegiate women’s basketball coverage (including televising this weekend’s NCAA Women’s Final Four in Boston). In addition, she has branched out into other sports, most notably working as a sideline reporter on ESPN’s college football and men’s basketball telecasts.
Duffy now turns her focus to preparing for Monday’s WNBA Pre-Draft Camp at Emmanuel College in Boston, followed by Wednesday’s WNBA Draft, which will be held at 1 p.m. (ET) inside the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. The first round of the event will be broadcast live on ESPN, with the final two rounds shown live on ESPNU, NBA TV and WNBA.com.
— ND —