Big East Bound in ‘22

Sunday, November 1st, 2020

St. Andrew's School and Expressions Elite junior Preston Murphy Jr. announced an early verbal commitment to DePaul on Sunday. 

Murphy, who is the son of former URI guard and longtime college coach Preston Murphy, is now in his second season in New England after arriving last year from Nebraska. 

"I'm excited to announce my commitment to Coach Leitao and DePaul University," Murphy told NERR. "The way the coaching staff prioritized and communicated throughout the process really stood out to me. I trust in Coach Leitao's plan for me and I'm overjoyed to have the opportunity to receive a stellar education in the great city of Chicago, and to be a part of the extraordinary tradition of Blue Demon basketball."

Murphy follows in the footsteps of other St. Andrew's guards like Brycen Goodine and Michael Carter-Williams and Saint's head coach Michael Hart is confident that Murphy will be ready to make an impact in the Big East in two years. 

"Preston has a high ceiling and an outstanding work-ethic," Hart says. "He wants to be coached, comes from a great family, and should be a huge success with still two years to prepare." 

Expressions Elite director Todd Quarles echoed a similar sentiment. 

"Preston has been incredible to work with. Even though he missed out on playing on our EYBL team, because of COVID-19, he took advantage of this period and just out-worked his competition," Quarles said. "He has hit the weights extremely hard and gotten so much stronger. Preston has elite speed and lateral quickness, great shooting ability and can really get up in you and defend. He is verbal and communicates extremely well with his teammates. He is very competitive and just impacts winning at the highest level. We are really proud of Preston. I've been fortunate to be able to identify talented players early on in their careers, which has led to us working together to attain their goals of playing collegiate basketball at great academics institutions all across the country. Preston is the latest and I can tell you this, DePaul just got themselves a good one."

Video and analysis can be found below via NERR founder Adam Finkelstein on Instagram: