Taine Murray’s heroics off the bench Wednesday for Virginia may have caught many by surprise.
If so, shame on you for not paying attention.
His 11-point effort, which included a pair of threes, the last sealing the win over the Wolfpack, wasn’t his first time in the spotlight for UVA.
Just this month, against Louisville, the junior guard from New Zealand scored 12 points in 18 minutes.
But after that breakout against the Cardinals, Murray’s minutes and scoring numbers had fallen.
In blowout losses to NC State in Raleigh and at Wake Forest, Murray scored a combined three points, as the Wolfpack and Demon Deacons deep-froze the Virginia offense.
Wednesday, in the return matchup with State, Murray appeared to have completely fallen outside of coach Tony Bennett’s rotation.
It wasn’t until the six-minute mark of the first half action that Murray removed his warmup jersey.
When he did hit the floor, it was apparent he had no intention of his court time being simply to buy some rest for other players.
Murray’s up-and-down usage in the era of instant transfer, instant gratification in college basketball could have sent him traveling.
Instead, as Murray has done since joining the Virginia program, he just worked harder.
Now that’s a novel ideal.
Murray is the poster child for a hard worker.
His January dip in playing time?
For Murray, the solution was, work harder.
Instead of hitting the transfer portal, he just kept working harder to find a way to contribute, whenever called upon.
For those of us media folks that have been around for a while, Taine Murray is our hero.
Murray’s the gold standard of the college basketball world that we knew and covered for decades.
Murray’s career path has looked more like the stock market graphics.
After an initial burst early in his first season in Charlottesville, Murray then disappeared further down the bench, at times never removing his warmup jersey.
He was a player that appeared destined to jet from the Virginia basketball program.
If he had taken that route, he would have joined the several thousands of college basketball players who left their programs because of limited playing time.
In fact, two Virginia players transferred in Murray’s first year: Cason McCorkle and Igor Milicic elected to take that transfer route.
Murray stayed.
It wasn’t for instant success.
Murray knew the challenge he faced, as Virginia continued to recruit elite talent to the program.
He wasn’t going to gain playing time by attrition, but by attitude.
And his attitude is contagious.
Guard Isaac McNeely said this about Murray. “He’s just the hardest-working player on this team. It’s not a surprise that he does what he does.”
After Wednesday’s game-changing performance against NC State, I caught up with Murray and thanked him for his dedication to the team and his determination to just keep working harder at getting better.
His response?
“Thank you for the encouragement and believing in me and the program.”
My response?
Darn allergies.
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