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Here are Notre Dame's top 10 career scorers in men's basketball – IndyStar
One of these players still holds a major national scoring record almost 50 years after setting it.
Here are Notre Dame’s men’s basketball career scoring leaders. (Statistics from College Basketball Reference)
2,560 points, 1968-71
Austin Carr did this in essentially 2 1/2 seasons. He missed about half of this first season of eligibility, but averaged 22.1 points over 16 games. He averaged 38.1 and 38.0 after that. He’s the only Irish player to score at least 50 points in a game, and he did it nine times.
His NCAA tournament numbers are even more bonkers. In the 1970 tournament, he scored 61 (still a record), 52 and 45 points. In ’71, he scored 52, 26 and 47.
Notre Dame coach Johnny Dee had an idea of how the Irish should approach tournament play: “When it gets down to nitty-gritty time, you’ve got to go to your bread and butter. Until four games ago, (Carr) was averaging 24.9 shots per game. We’re trying to get him 35 to 40 shots in the tournament. When you get to the end of 40 minutes, you can’t say Austin only got 24 shots.”
2,476 points, 2006-10
He started for half of his freshman season, averaging 11.2 points. He averaged 20.4, 23.3 and 21.8 after that, earning Big East Player of the Year honors as a sophomore. He was a consensus All-American for three straight years. He scored 40 against Louisville as a sophomore.
Harangody battled through injury as a senior, and as tournament time approached, he accepted a less prominent role. “I don’t know if I’ve ever been in a trickier situation in coaching,” Irish coach Mike Brey said. “I basically told him, ‘Luke, we’ve changed. … Luke says, ‘I’m no dummy, I get it, I see how things are going, but I think I can help.'”
2,223 points, 1973-76
He had scoring averages of 18.3, 30.4 and 28.6 points, earning one national Player of the Year honor in 1976. He was a consensus first-team All-American for two years. He owns ND’s top non-Austin Carr scoring performance with 49 points.
He earned great praise from opponents. From Marquette coach Al McGuire: “You can’t get him down mentally. He keeps coming at you.” DePaul coach Ray Meyer: “He seems to have a sixth sense of positioning himself for rebounds and drawing fouls.” Northwestern player Billy McKinney: “He’s bad news in tennis shoes.”
2,195 points, 2001-05
He started all of his 128 appearances in an Irish uniform, and his best-scoring season was his 19.7 average as a junior. He’s also among the Irish all-time leaders in steals and assists.
He believed it was important to raise the profile of Notre Dame for Indiana high school players. He was the 2001 IndyStar Mr. Basketball for Pike. “I work on enunciating words. I work on being an approachable person. That’s kind of what made the face of Notre Dame thing. I’ve been able to speak clearly and confidently about our program.”
2,085 points, 1994-98
Garrity averaged 13.4 points as a freshman and kept raising it until it was 23.2 points as a senior. He was the Big East Player of the Year as a junior and an All-American as a senior.
One thing was missing from Garrity’s Irish resume: “It seemed like we were ready to take a step forward,” he said, “but it just didn’t happen. We even took a step back. I still regret that we never made it to the NCAA tournament. It was frustrating.”
2,058 points, 1984-88
He stepped in immediately for the Irish and averaged 15.8 points as a freshman. He averaged 22 as a senior. He scored more than 20 points in five of his seven NCAA tournament games.
In the summer of 1986, Rivers suffered severe cuts to his abdomen in a car crash, but he was ready for the start of the next season. “I remember talk of me taking the semester or the year off to recover 100 percent,” he said. “I wanted no part of such talk. I started the semester from my hospital bed.”
2,011 points, 1998-2001
In three years, he averaged 19.2, 22.7 and 21.8 points. He started every game but one.
Murphy was also a threat for double-digit rebounds every time out. “His productivity was staggering,” teammate David Graves said. “He did it against the best. He was the best player I ever played with.”
1,850 points, 1999-2003
He improved his scoring from 9.8 points as a freshman to 19.5 as a senior.
This is from teammate Jordan Cornette: “When he is going out there diving for balls, knocking down shots, getting steals, defending his man, then you are going to do the same thing when you are out there. At halftime, if we’re not playing well, he’ll open his mouth and talk. What he does on the court is contagious for the rest of the team.”
1,820 points, 1956-59
These are pretty amazing averages: 20.6 points and 17.3 rebounds as a sophomore; 25.2/17.2 as a junior; 23.4/15.2 as a senior. He scored 43 against Air Force in 1958.
Hawkins, an African-American, said he never had a racial incident on campus. He was denied service at a local pizza joint once. He recalled how friend and Heisman Trophy winner Paul Hornung reacted: “He said, ‘Damn you, Hawk, I’m missing out on all of my lasagna and pizza, and it’s because of your ass,’” Hawkins laughed. “So he said, ‘C’mon, we’re going downtown, and we’re going to get your apology and eat.’ I got the apology.”
1,746 points, 1998-2002
Steady over four seasons, averaging between 12.3 points as a freshman to 14.4 as a senior. He had games of 19 and 20 points in the 2002 NCAA tournament.
“Individually, I have accomplished more than I ever would have imagined,” he said during his senior season. “I’ve improved every year and that is the most satisfying thing to me. You see a lot of college players who reach a plateau, but I got better.”
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