With an ongoing NCAA investigation, you won’t hear the ASU baseball players mention Pat Murphy’s name much this year.

Curiosity about the pending results and the real story behind the former coach’s forced resignation go beyond the college baseball world. One of the biggest stories in ASU sports history remains largely untold, and dramatic sanctions on the athletic program are a possibility.

His legacy lives inside the Sun Devil locker room and all around Packard Stadium, where since his departure, ASU upperclassmen have talked about Murphy’s life guidance — the way he was ‘‘raising men.”

As time strolls on, will reverence for Murphy move with it?

Just a few months after his dismissal, the surface message for the press duringthe team’s preseason Media Day was clear: the program has moved on.

The “no Murphy questions” policy was enforced in a media room where a larger-than-life mural hangs above of the man who coached 15 seasons, won 630 games and four Pac-10 Coach of the Year awards and guided his team to four top-10 finishes in the last five years.

While the media, parents and fans may have a difficult time avoiding Murphy’s name, if there’s a group with the fortitude to handle the distraction of its utterance — its history, implications and inferences — it’s current ASU players.

That’s not sunshine and rainbows from the college paper columnist.

This offseason, when the program was most vulnerable after Murphy’s “resignation,” who was it that arranged a meeting with Vice President of University Athletics Lisa Love and President Michael Crow?

It was ASU seniors Josh Spence, Kole Calhoun and Raoul Torrez.

They, in all likelihood, greatly influenced Love’s decision to stay within the program and hire Tim Esmay, despite the summer additions of highly qualified coaches Travis Jewett and Ken Knutson.

In an interview after news first broke of Murphy’s “resignation,” the father of top recruit Jake Barrett seemed unsure about his son’s future.

What would the No.3-ranked recruiting class, according to Baseball America, look like if ASU’s senior leadership reacted with less initiative?

Murphy often talked about his team’s character last season. Surely, ASU’s upperclassmen deserve much credit for supplying the season-saving adhesive — independent of the legendary coach — but ASU players were molded by Murphy to handle adversity.

Not my words — theirs.

By extension, even after his own dismissal, Murphy’s sphere of influence helped keep the program intact. Murphy had said he wanted to be an ASU “lifer.”

Now in the ASU afterlife, the Sun Devils’ aspirations of Omaha haven’t ascended as an apparition.

While the “no Murphy questions” policy may separate players from a sound bite, looks in the eyes of ASU’s leaders shows a focused embrace of the team’s state — past, present and future.

More than ever, it seems, Murphy’s only unattained accomplishment seems a tangible end or a worthy tribute.

History may show Murphy’s tenure through a lens of suspicion, but his presence won’t be expunged from the team’s psyche.

This Sun Devils’ team preserved more than the memories of man-to-man talks and coaching advice. It embodies Murphy’s defiant, competitive spirit.

The aura surrounding the team is strong, and ASU is out to prove its doubters wrong.

Reach Nick at nick.ruland@asu.edu