March 25, 1997
Basketball Program Honors Veal, Cervenik at Annual Banquet
TEMPE, Ariz. - Junior Jeremy Veal, the Arizona State men's basketball team's leading scorer last season, was named the team's Most Valuable Player for 1996-97 at the team's awards banquet held Tuesday, March 25 at The Buttes Resort in Tempe.
Also honored by the basketball program was the late Tony Cerkvenik, a Sun Devil cager from 1960-63 and one of 11 Sun Devil basketball players in the ASU Hall of Fame. Cerkvenik's 1,022 career rebounds and 12.2 rebounds per game career average are both Sun Devil records, and his 415 rebounds in 1961 also stands as an ASU single-season mark. Cerkvenik's 312 boards in 1962 and his 295 rebounds in 1963 stand seventh (tie) and 10th on the ASU records list. The Ned Wulk Award, given to a member of the Sun Devil community who has shown great support to the program, was given to Cerkvenik for all of his hard work and dedication before his passing away last year, and Coach Bill Frieder and the ASU program also gave the first "Tony Cerkvenik Rebounder of the Year Award" to senior Rodger Farrington, who led the team with 7.1 rebounds per game.
Veal, an All-Pac-10 performer, averaged 18.7 points (fourth in the Pac-10) and 4.7 assists (tied for fifth in league), becoming just the fourth player since 1983 (fifth time overall) to finish in the league's top five in both scoring and assists. Veal also ranked among the league leaders in free throw percentage and three-point shooting. He already has scored 1,318 career points, and led the Sun Devils in scoring 18 times this season and had 13 20-point games.
Freshman Eddie House was named the Rookie of the Year. House earned Pac-10 All-Freshman honors and set the ASU freshman record for steals with 59. He also became the first freshman in ASU history to notch 100 assists (108) and 50 steals (59) in a season. House played in all 30 games, starting in 22, and averaged 12.6 points and 3.6 assists per game.
Farrington also earned the Most Improved Player Award. Farrington, who set the Pac-10 blocks per game mark with 4.2 per game (113 blocks in 27 games), averaged 9.5 points and 7.1 rebounds per game this year. His 160 blocks in his career is the most by a Sun Devil in a two-year career.
The team Academic Award was given to Quincy Brewer, a social work major who earned earn his degree this May. Senior awards were presented to Brewer, Farrington, Lamar Richardson and Matt Holman.