Dec. 22, 2008
UNIVERSITY PARK, PA., Dec. 22, 2008 - Senior Nittany Lion guard Danny Morrissey (Cleveland, Ohio) has been named a candidate for the eighth annual Lowe's Senior Class Award presented annually to an NCAA Division I student-athlete in nine sports.
Morrissey, who ranks sixth all-time at Penn State with 193 career three-pointers, was named among 30 men's basketball nominees nation-wide for the award. Based on criteria focusing on the "Four C's" of classroom, character, community and competition, the award winners will be selected by national balloting of head basketball coaches, national media and college basketball fans. Lowe's, an official corporate partner of the NCAA, will present the winners with trophies during the weekends of the respective NCAA Men's and Women's Final Four. A national media committee will select 10 finalists for the award in February.
Morrissey graduated in May of 2008 with a degree in Finance and a grade-point average over 3.5. He is currently working on a second degree in Labor and Industrial Relations Management. He was named an ESPN the Magazine/CoSIDA Academic All-District II first team selection in 2008 and is a two-time Big Ten All-Academic team selection and member of the Dean's List.
Named a team co-captain in his senior campaign, Morrissey has played in 103 games as a Nittany Lion, including starting 10 as a freshman and 53 total on his career. He has led the team in three-point shooting in every season he has played and is the second leading active three-point shooter in the Big Ten. He is on pace to end his career among the top three long-range shooters in Penn State history and led the Big Ten hitting 49.3 percent (32-71) from the arc in conference games in 2006-07. With 832 career points, he stands within range of becoming the Nittany Lions' 29th career 1,000-point scorer and owns 32 double-digit scoring games and 23 career games with three or more treys.
Also active in the community and on campus, Morrissey was a two-year team representative for the Student Athlete Advisory Board and has participated in community and charity events such as Special Olympics, Roar for Reading (read to elementary kids), State College Food Bank collection, "Operation Warm" (collecting coats for the needy through Salvation Army), Penn State Dance Marathon canning and Penn State Basketball's THON Dodgeball Tournament.
The Lowe's Senior CLASS Award is in its eighth year for men's and women's basketball. Previous winners of the men's award include Juan Dixon of Maryland (2002), David West of Xavier (2003), Jameer Nelson of St. Joseph's (2004), Wayne Simien of Kansas (2005), J.J. Reddick of Duke (2006), Alando Tucker of Wisconsin (2007) and Shan Foster of Vanderbilt (2008).