Awards Banquet Recap (W/ Program Photos)

[TallTitan34]

I apologize if I forgot some of the details but here is the recap from last night's men's basketball awards banquet.

The night started with cocktails from 5:30 to 6:30.

At 6:30, Dennis Krause (Time Warner Sports) introduced himself as the master of ceremonies for the event and welcomed Steve Cottingham to the stage.  Cottingham thanked everyone for showing up, noting that is was a record crowd for the event.  He said Father Wild sends his best as he was out of town on business.  He went on to then introduce Father Kelly who said grace before dinner.

After dinner about an hour later the event started with Dennis Krause introducing a highlight video from the season made by Tom Kurtz of Time Warner Sports.  The highlight video was identical to the one shown on the Tom Crean show a few weeks back except all clips of Crean were removed from the video.  The part at the end where Crean does his karate moves was replaced with a congrats screen to Wes, Jerel, and Dom on achieving 1,000 career points.

Following the highlight video, Krause announced that a new tradition was to begin tonight where the players would be awarding awards to each other.  Buzz later noted this was another way to show that it was all about the players.  (This was the most entertaining part seeing the players joke around with each other.  This bunch really seems to get along well.)

Krause then introduced Trevor Mbakwe to the stage to hand out the Free Throw Proficiency Award.  Trevor talked about how this player was 132-167 on the year including 6 big ones against Kentucky.  The award went to Wes Matthews.  Wes came up to the podium and joking told Trevor, "Hey it was 8 big ones!".  Wes then gave the standard thank yous.

Wes then stayed on stage to hand out the Most Assists Award.  Wes talked about how he truly felt this player was the best point guard in America.  The award went to Dominic James.  Wes handed Dom his plaque and proceeded to walk off stage.  Dom told Wes to come back up as Wes forget his own plaque from the previous award.  Dom said, "That right there was an assist" which got a huge laugh.  Again the standard thank yous.

Next I forgot who handed out the Chairman of the Boards award but it went to Lazar Hayward who was highly touted by the presenter.  Lazar said things got pretty rough practice going for rebounds which might have been why he was called for so many fouls on push offs during the game!  More standard thank yous.

Lazar then stayed on stage to present the Hit the Deck Award.  Lazar opened the envelope to read who had won and said, "Who votes on this" jokingly acting like it should be his.  Lazar noted how he and this player had some pretty good battles in practice saying, "Really, you should see how intense it gets!"  Lazar then introduced the well deserving Dan Fitzgerald as the winner of the award.  Dan came up and thanked Ooze, Dwight, and the other big men for knocking him down in practice all these years.  Dan said the majority of elbows he got were from these guys in practice instead of in the game.  He noted how he was never seriously injured over four years, however, had the most minor injuries (cuts, bruises, sprains) than anyone including a total of 38 stitches.  He again thanked the big guys for knocking him down to make this award possible.

Again I forgot who presented the Super Sub Award which went to Maurice Acker.

[TallTitan34]

This sucks!  The end got cut off!  I'll type it later.

[Gwaki]

i think the super sub award was presented by frozena

[TallTitan34]

Continuing....

Again I forgot who presented the Super Sub Award which went to Maurice Acker.

Dennis Krause again took the stage to give out the Floor Burn Award to David Cubilian.  Krause also had to accept the award for Cubes as he had to leave early.  He had sugery on his shoulder the night before and something about forgetting medicine or not taking it or something along those lines.

Next the Deflection King award was presented to the obvious choice Jerel McNeal. Jerel had some hilarious comments that I can't remember right now.

Jerel stayed on stage to present the Most Improved Player Award.  Jerel said that we haven't even seen the begining of what this player can achieve.  This award went to the obvious choice, Lazar Hayward.  Again more funny comments from Lazar.

Next Scott Christopherson took the stage to hand out the Bart Miller Standard of Excellence Award to two deseving players.  The first went to walk-on Tommy Brice.  Tommy took the stage and siad he wasn't expecting an award.  He also noted it was the first award he's won in three years.  The next award went to Dwight Burke.  Dwight thanks the team and then said, "I'd also like to thank the coach?,  old coaches?, new coaches?,  I don't know whatever they are" which got a pretty good laugh.

Dwight stayed on stage to present the Olouma Nnamaka Consistency Award.  Dwight said that this player was consistant all year long including reaching double digits in something like 28 of 35 games this season.  Dwight then asked what happened in the other 7?  He then presented the award to Jerel McNeal.  Jerel took the stage and told Dwight in those other seven games he was earning the deflection award and was probably on the bench because of foul trouble.

More to come...

[TallTitan34]

Continuing....

Next Brian Barone took the stage to present the Most Valuable Player Award.  Barone told story about his first day on the job as a coach at Illinois State.  The head coach there was excited as Barone was able to get two big high school recruits to come to campus.  Brian was showing them around campus when he asked one of the recruits where else he was considering.  The recruit told him Marquette to which Barone replied, "that's a great place!"  Needless to say his head coach was not pleased.  The next week Jerel McNeal signed at Marquette University.  Jerel came up and said it was easy to be a good player with the great players he has around him.  Said the award reflected and team more than just his own play. 

Dennis Krause then returned to the stage and said 20 years ago he was lucky enough to interview a great Milwaukee coach.  To this day he said he still has on tape his interview with Hank Raymonds.  Hank came to the stage to a standing ovation to present the Hank Raymonds Sportsmanship Award.  Hank said he wasn't informed yet on who had been voted the winner so he looked to see who had their name engraved on the  trophy.  Upon reading the trophy Hank said, "Oh I love that guy!".  The guy he loves is Ousmane Barro.  Ooze again thanked people for booing him for the last four years and said something in his native language and I have no idea what it meant.

More to come...

[TallTitan34]

Continuing....

Buzz then took the stage to congratulate Wes Matthews for reaching the 1,000 point mark.  Wes then was given the same ball that Dom and Jerel recieved at the games this year for the same achievement.

Buzz stayed on stage and commented on each of the four seniors who each took the stage individually.  The comments were pretty similiar to senior night so I won't go into that very much.  One funny comment though when Trend took the stage he asked the guy who put the highlight video where the love was as he only was in the video twice despite is 5 or 6 Sportscenter highlight reel dunks. He also yelled he would bleed blue and gold the rest of his life!

Dennis Krause again took the stage and said there would be a special announcement from Dominic James.  The entire place got silent.  Dom took the stage and began by thanking everyone for the support the team got over the last 10 days.  He said how he knew what it was to be apart of Marquette by everyone getting together and rising up over anything they faced.  He said he knows he is apart of Marquette University.  Dom went on to say three years ago no one knew who Jerel, Wes, or himself were but now they know.  Now he says noone knows who Buzz Williams is.  He said next year this team is going to show the world just who Buzz Williams is.  He went on to say once Buzz was hired it was one of the easiest decesions he's ever had to make in RETURNING TO MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY!  The crowd went nuts!  He said next year the world will know who they all are.  Dom had a great speach about Marquette and this was the only stuff I could remember.  The exact things he said sounds much better.

The ceremony wrapped up with Buzz speaking.  He talked about how tonight was about the players and again talked about what he was going to do with the program (similar to his press conference.)  Each time he speaks I gain more confidence in him.  He had everyone in attendance rise by groups such as alumni, students, past players, etc.  Buzz spoke for 8 minutes and ended it with a WE ARE MARQUETTE!

The night was over with 500 people excited about Dom's return.

[TallTitan34]

Also some of the past players in attandence were:  Jim McIlvaine, Earl Tatum, Terry Sanders, Ronny Eford, and Brian Barone.

Brian Barone was the only coach from last years staff (along with Buzz) that was there.

[ZiggysFryBoy]

good stuff, thanks titan.

[TallTitan34]

[MUteamball98]

truly appreciated the recap.  thanks so much

[TallTitan34]

No problem.  I probably should have posted it right after it ended because there is a lot of stuff I forgot too.

[MUFanInGreenBay]

Titan, thanks so much for that recap. Must have been a great time.

[77ncaachamps]

Loved it especially the part "Then Barro started saying something in his native tongue that I couldn't understand"! Thanks Titan!

BTW, love how Crean is not even on the program ANYWHERE!

Also, doesn't it look like Brice is wearing Trend's shorts? Those things are HUUUUUGE!

[Markusquette]

Thanks a lot for the recap.  It seems like our guys really know how to have fun and have a good sense of humor.  I think that's one of the reasons they all seem to get along great together.

[Fullodds]

Robb Logterman and Tony Smith as well

[robmufan]

Loved it especially the part "Then Barro started saying something in his native tongue that I couldn't understand"! Thanks Titan!

BTW, love how Crean is not even on the program ANYWHERE!

Also, doesn't it look like Brice is wearing Trend's shorts? Those things are HUUUUUGE!

If i remember right, i believe he looked at a table and said, "they wanted me to speak some french" and started laughing

[jaygall31]

thank you

[BaltimoreMC]

Great post - thanks.  Nice to see that the program & player relationships thrive despite TC's departure