Liberty’s 2022-23 season has come to an end after the Flames’ loss to Wisconsin in the 2nd Round of the NIT. Liberty finished the season at 27-9 overall and 15-3 in the ASUN, the last year for the program in the conference before moving to Conference USA.
It always stings a little when a season comes to an end, but there was still a lot to be proud of from the season that saw many high points. Here are our awards for the Flames’ season.
MVP: Darius McGhee
The illustrious career of Liberty guard Darius McGhee has come to an end and what a career it was. He rewrote many of the Liberty offensive records for single seasons and a career. After setting the program record for most points and three-pointers made in a season last year, he upped those numbers this year to 821 points and 162 made triples. Three straight ASUN Player of the Year awards, three ASUN titles, four ASUN championship game appearances, and an honorable mention All-American are just a few of the awards for McGhee.
Defensive MVP: Joseph Venzant
It’s almost impossible to name one defensive MVP for the team this season. Isiah Warfield, Joseph Venzant, and Shiloh Robinson all deserve recognition, but we give the nod to sophomore guard Joseph Venzant. He has been a starter on the team for the entirety of his two seasons in the program and always drew a top defensive assignment. With the loss of McGhee going into next season, hopefully we will see guys like Venzant take huge leaps on the offensive side of the ball, but what he provides on defense can not be stated in a box score.
Rookie of the Year: Colin Porter
The impact that true freshman Colin Porter had on this team was probably the biggest difference from last year’s team to pushing this year’s squad to being a top 50 team in the country. Porter is the first Liberty basketball player to start every game during his freshman season for as long back as I could find, going back to the early 2000s. He averaged 27.2 minutes per game while finishing third on the team in scoring at 7.8 points per game. Porter also averaged 3.8 assists to just 1.16 turnovers a contest.
