The Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC) named Muskingum men’s basketball junior guard Marcus Dempsey the OAC Scholar-Athlete of the Month for January.
Dempsey is a three-time captain for the Muskies. He ended his freshman season as the OAC Freshman of the Year and the D3hoops.com Great Lakes Region Rookie of the Year. In his sophomore year, Dempsey set the Muskingum record for points scored in a game with 57 against Oberlin and received U.S. Basketball Writers Association Division III Men’s National Player of the Week twice. He ended his second year with College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Third Team Academic All-American honors.
“Marcus is a tremendous student-athlete and young man. He’s in the gym for countless hours and puts in a ton of time working on his craft as a basketball player while also putting in the same amount of time and work on his academics. Marcus truly exemplifies what it means to be a Muskie,” said Muskingum Head Coach Travis Schwab.
An early-season injury derailed Dempsey’s junior season, but he still managed to average 25.7 points per game in the six games he played. During the 2019-2020 season, Dempsey currently leads the OAC in scoring at 31.1 points per game part-way through the 2019-2020 season. He ranks second all-time in scoring at Muskingum with 1,790 points and is 81 points behind Andy Moore (1988-92).
Throughout Dempsey’s career, he has earned several OAC Player of the Week awards and is a two-time All-OAC and Great Lakes Region selection. Dempsey has also excelled in academics, as he was named to the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) Honors Court and received Academic All-OAC Honor Roll honors twice.
“Marcus has his priorities in the right order with his academics coming first and basketball second. He continually proves that you can be successful on and off the court. If you put in the time and effort, good things will happen, and Marcus is a true example of that, and everyone, including his coaches and teammates, notice it,” said Schwab.
The OAC Scholar-Athlete award honors a student-athlete every month. Criteria for the award require student-athletes to be either a sophomore, junior, or senior, play in an in-season sport, have proper sportsmanship, and hold a cumulative grade-point average (GPA) of 3.0 or higher.
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