Notre Dame Basketball Announces Postseason Awards
Like most other events, Notre Dame’s annual basketball awards banquet was canceled due to COVID-19 concerns. The awards themselves did not go away, though.
Notre Dame held a virtual unveiling of its postseason honors on Twitter Thursday night, with head coach Mike Brey beginning it with a video filmed from his porch.
“We’re having to do some things a little differently this year,” Brey said. “We would have loved to do this at the Rolfs Athletic Center … but we’re going do to that next year. We did something to honor our seniors. Our evening with Notre Dame basketball has always been about our seniors.”
Here are the 2019-20 honorees:
MVP: John Mooney
Mr. Clutch: Nate Laszewski
Team Irish: Nikola Djongo
Outstanding Playmaker: Prentiss Hubb
Defensive Player of the Year: Juwan Durham
Captain Award: Rex Pflueger, T.J. Gibbs
Most Improved Player: Dane Goodwin
Notre Dame finished the season 20-12 overall and 10-10 in the ACC. The Irish began conference play 2-6, but went 9-4 to finish the year. That stretch included an 80-58 win over Boston College in the ACC Tournament, which eventually became their last game of the season and the last career game for Pflueger, Mooney and Gibbs when all remaining contests were canceled.
Mooney was a first-team All-ACC selection after averaging 16.2 points, 12.7 rebounds and 1.7 assists per game. He led the country with 25 doubles and was second in rebounds per game. He ends his career having averaged a double-double in each of his last two seasons.
“A machine-like rebounder who worked his tail off to become one of the best players in college basketball,” Brey tweeted. “The numbers he posted will last for a long time in [the ACC].”
----
• Talk about it inside Rockne’s Roundtable
• Watch our videos and subscribe to our YouTube channel
• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes
• Learn more about our print and digital publication, Blue & Gold Illustrated.
• Follow us on Twitter: @BGINews, @BGI_LouSomogyi, @BGI_MikeSinger, @PatrickEngel_, @ToddBurlage and @AndrewMentock.
• Like us on Facebook.