Florida recruit Murphy to showcase skills in a long summer of action

St. Mark's (Southborough, Mass.) forward Erik Murphy is ready for a summer on the AAU circuit. Dave Grossman

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Spread across three rows of bleachers in Providence College's Joe Mullaney Gymnasium for the Providence Jam Fest last month, Erik Murphy, a 6-foot-10, 215-pound forward, folded his right knee behind his back.

Prior to playing his sixth game in 26 hours, the fair-skinned junior then relaxed the joint. Exhaling as he craned his neck toward his high school coach, Dave Lubick, he prepared to take the court with his AAU team -- the New England Playaz. "Coach, I'm not sure I can make it through another one," Murphy says.

Worn but not worried, Murphy, a junior from St. Mark's in Southborough, Mass., says he was not thinking back to his last visit here 11 months earlier. Playing in a mid-summer day run with Friars players, he had stayed on for one last game against Rhode Island College players. Reaching for a rebound, he watched an opposing player grab the loose ball. While pivoting to get back on defense just below the Big East emblem in the paint, another player crashed onto his right knee. Murphy collapsed to the floor. No surgery would be needed, but the resulting bone bruise put him down for the summer. "That play led to frustration," Murphy says.

Originally scheduled to travel the nation with the Playaz, barnstorming from Boston to Los Angeles with stops in Las Vegas and Cincinnati along the way, Murphy still traveled the summer circuit but didn't play. His father, Jay, a former Boston College star and four-year NBA veteran who now sells commercial insurance, had already signed on to help coach with the Playaz, and stayed on despite his son's fall.

Though sedentary on the scene, Murphy's recruitment was already in motion. By fall, while Murphy rehabbed his knee and added muscle to his upper body top programs made entreaties about his interest in their schools. Mailings and calls came with such frequency to the family and Lubick that a rare open-gym setting was arranged at St. Mark's to feed the gold-rush frenzy.

On a Sunday last October, Division I prospectors flew and drove to the private campus dotted by English Tudor style buildings and known better for producing hockey players. "It was a circus, which we don't like to do at the school," says Lubick, whose son, Nate, a year younger than Murphy, walked out of the gym with seven scholarship offers.

Afterward Florida coach Billy Donovan -- who was in attendance that day -- made a return visit. Lubick, a willful coach who had been at the school 11-years had never coached a player that drew as much attention as Murphy. At first, he was wary of Donovan's recruiting reputation. Thirty seconds into the trip, a fire alarm went off and Donovan joined the others outside. "Kids were whispering, 'Is that Billy Donovan?'" Murphy says.

Back in the coaches' offices, a co-worker's 5-year-old son picked the pocket of the recently-made highest paid coach in college basketball. "I'll just say there was a gold card in there," says Lubick, who was won over. "Billy was professional throughout."

Donovan continued to hone his relationship. The Murphys then paid Donovan a return visit. On campus for the Tennessee football game, Murphy joined Florida commits from the class of 2008 on the field as they watched the 2007 title team receive their rings. By mid-January, Murphy was a Gator.