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Sending Out an S.O.S. for DePaul Basketball

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http://www.lostlettermen.com/wp-content/uploads/DePaul.jpg

By Jim Weber

DePaul basketball has been a sleeping giant for so long it could officially be declared a coma.

The program of George Mikan, Ray Meyer, Mark Aguirre, Terry Cummings and Rod Strickland that has reached two Final Fours and was a college basketball power in the 1970s and ’80s has only been to the NCAA tournament twice in the last two decades.

The Blue Demons have turned into a train wreck in recent years, winning a total of seven Big East regular season games in the last five years combined. At 11-16 overall and 2-12 in the Big East this season, the Blue Demons are enduring another miserable year. And these results come from a coach in his third year, Oliver Purnell, who is being paid $1.8 million per season. That’s more money than the likes of North Carolina’s Roy Williams ($1.7M) and Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim ($1.5M).

Yes, it’s time to taking a wrecking ball to a once-proud program. Here’s my blueprint for the Blue Demons to rise from the ashes:

#1: Hire Someone Who Can Recruit Chicago

This is an absolute no-brainer and the most important part of a DePaul revival. And yet, Blue Demons athletic director Jean Lenti Ponsetto completely blew it off with the 2010 hiring of Purnell, who was already on the hot seat at Clemsonin 2010.

Locals called Lenti Ponsetto on her mistake immediately. Said AAU coach Mike Irvin told ESPN at the time: “I’ve been CEO of the [Mac Irvin] Fire for the past five years. I’ve been at my father’s side for the last 15 years assisting him with the team. I’ve never seen [Purnell]. I’ve never seen a Clemson coach. That’s bad, because in Chicago it’s about the relationships, the ties. Chicago’s a different animal, a different city.

“The mistake that Jean Lenti Ponsetto keeps making is she gets coaches who can’t recruit Chicago.”

Sure enough, Purnell has routinely failed to land players from the Windy City despite being located in the heart of it. Of DePaul’s 15 players on the roster, only four are from the Chicago area. Only one of those, Jamee Crockett, is an actual contributor. DePaul’s best players, Brandon Young and Cleveland Melvin, were both second-tier recruits from Baltimore in Purnell’s old recruiting wheelhouse along the Atlantic Coast. Purnell has recruited Rivals’ No. 118 overall recruit Billy Garrett out of Chicago for next year, but it’s far too little, too late.

If I were Lenti Ponsetto, my top candidates to replace Purnell would be Reggie Theus, Bryce Drew and Orlando Antigua. I don’t think Lenti Ponsetto could go wrong with any of those three.

Theus is a former Chicago Bulls star who was wildly successful at New Mexico State from 2005-07 before jumping at the Sacramento Kings job. Currently stuck in the D-League with the Los Angeles D-Fenders, he’s got the same good looks and charm of Steve Lavin, who has been a recruiting fiend at St. John’s. Passed over at DePaul for Purnell in 2010, there’s no reason to believe Theus wouldn’t still love the opportunity to get back into college basketball. Plus, playing old “Hang Time” clips during games would be awesome.

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Best known for “The Shot” in the 1998 tournament, Drew has proven himself to be one of the best young coaches in the game in two short years coaching his alma mater of Valparaiso. A candidate for the Mississippi State opening last year, Drew has been a solid recruiter in Indiana and Illinois. Located just 60 miles from Chicago, Drew knows the area. If he proves to have a fraction of the recruiting prowess of his brother Scott at Baylor, Drew would be wildly successful at DePaul.

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You may never of heard of Antigua but there’s a reason this John Calipari disciple at Kentucky was named the top assistant coach under 40 by ESPN last year. The man can flat-out recruit, as evidenced by helping to haul in blue chippers like Anthony Davis (a Chicago native) and Nerlens Noel, among the many other one-and-done phenoms to come through Lexington. Having been at Coach Cal’s side for five seasons, Antigua is overdue for his own head coaching job.

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#2: Get a New Arena ASAP

Allstate Arenas has and always will be a dump. It’s not close to campus, looks like an old shopping mall on the outside and is rotting away on the inside. We ranked it the worst BCS conference arena in college hoops and one reviewer on Yelp aptly described it as a “hot mess.”

There has been talk about building a new arena that doubles as DePaul’s home gym and a practice facility for the Chicago Bulls near the school’s Lincoln Park campus. It’s even received support from Mayor Rahm Emanuel. (Getting rid of DePaul’s hideous logo since 1999 wouldn’t hurt either.)

If hiring a new coach is Priority No. 1, a new arena should be No. 1A, 2 and 3 for Lenti Ponsetto. A new home for the basketball team would make a world of difference for recruits and attendance while generating an excitement for DePaul basketball that hasn’t been seen in three decades.

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#3: Play Games at the United Center

There’s nothing DePaul can do about Allstate Arena in the short term. But the Blue Demons could follow the likes of Villanova and St. John’s, get out of their run-down home arena as play as often as possible at the United Center – like the Wildcats do at Wells Fargo Arena and the Johnnies at Madison Square Garden.

Every high school basketball player in Chicago dreams of playing at the home of the Bulls and The House That Michael Jordan Built. Yet the Blue Demons remain content playing their games in the shadow of O’Hare Airport in the Chicago suburbs instead of downtown. The United Center desperately wants DePaul to play all its home games there to avoid venue competition. If the Blue Demons can get a new arena near Lincoln Park, that doesn’t make sense. But playing weekend games at the United Center should would.

Sure, there would be a lot of empty seats at the United Center to start and it’s not much closer to DePaul’s campus than Allstate Arena. But it would at least be a fun experience for students, alumni and fans, rebuild DePaul as “Chicago’s team” and be a great recruiting tool. Even if a new on-campus arena is built, games at the United Center should be a permanent staple of the program for all the reasons above.

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Given its location in a recruiting hotbed, money it’s already splurging on a coach and history as a basketball power, turning around DePaul’s basketball program shouldn’t be rocket science. Good luck telling that to Blue Demon fans amid nearly a decade of misery.

Jim Weber is the founder of LostLettermen.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @JimMWeber and @LostLettermen.

9:23 AM on 2/25/2013

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  • DeChump

    All this makes too much sense….so Depaul won’t do it….

  • http://twitter.com/BlueDressMess Gene Venti Vonbobo

    #4: Kick the Athletic Director to the curb and hope the fanbase forgives you for letting such an unqualified, inept, and greedy boob destroy Ray Meyer’s legacy.

  • Joey

    One ugly truth, the Mike Irvin’s of the world want to dictate who coaches at the universities in Chicago. Chicago colleges and universities will not surrender to these AAU coaches. To them(colleges and universities) it’s not that important. To the AAU Coaching family, it’s their whole life, the only thing they know. Basketball is nice, but in the big picture, superficial, and DePaul would eliminate the program if needed to.

  • Stephen Howard

    As a DePaul Alumnus and former player for the Blue Demons, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed in how the men’s basketball team has fared in recent history. As a basketball enthusiast and current participant in college basketball albeit from the sidelines, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out how flawed your analysis is of DePaul’s basketball program.

    Your article loses all credibility when you lay out the blueprint for the Blue Demons’ return to greatness. I honestly even struggle to use credibility when it seems you didn’t do any research in your hastily put together attack on the men’s basketball team and its athletic director.

    #1 Hire Someone Who Can Recruit Chicago.

    You mention that Jeanne Lenti Ponsetto, current Director of Athletics at DePaul, blew it when she hired Purnell in 2010 and then quickly showed how she did NOT blow it, in what I’m sure you thought was proof when you quoted local AAU coaches. Great quote by Mike Irving of Mac Irving Fire AAU team about his disappointment on the hiring of Purnell. I would say most of Chicago’s AAU coaches were initially disappointed in the hire because they didn’t know Purnell and also because Illinois and Chicago in particular, take their high school basketball seriously, and they are a close knit bunch. You followed that up with another great quote to cement your point when you mentioned that Ponsetto keeps getting “coaches that can’t recruit Chicago”. Well, keep reading!

    In the very next paragraph, you mention Jamee Crocket, a Chicago area kid currently on DePaul’s roster from that same Mac Irving Fire team that your article quoted saying that Purnell can’t get Chicago area kids. I’m a little confused. It might have helped if you had a current quote from local coaches about their view on Purnell and his staff and not one from the very day he was hired where emotions were high, and Purnell was still an unknown in the area.

    You follow that up with more statements in a failed attempt to back up your argument, but you really just confused your readers even more when you mentioned the second tier recruits (Brandon Young and Cleveland Melvin) that Purnell has landed. What you left out with regards to Cleveland Melvin was that he was Big East Rookie of the Year in 2011, and this year he was a preseason Big East Player of the Year candidate. As far as Brandon Young is concerned, he is listed as the 36th rated offensive Division 1 player in terms of efficiency in the country by Kenpom.com, a respected website that rates teams and players for offensive and defensive efficiency.

    You then go on to state that if you were Jean Lenti Ponsetto, which to be honest, I’ll be the first to say that I’m glad you’re not, you would replace Purnell with Reggie Theus, Bryce Drew or Orlando Antigua. Are you serious? While I’m a fan of all the coaches that you mentioned, it would be hard for me to see how they would be the best fit for DePaul. You throw in Reggie Theus because he played for the Bulls. I don’t even remember when Theus played for the Bulls, and I played at DePaul so what makes you think that would resonate with the local kids of Chicago whose history of the Bulls only goes back to the Jordan era. I’m a fan of Theus, but when you quote local coaches wanting a guy who can recruit in Chicago, and the first coach you list as a replacement is from Inglewood, California…really? Bryce Drew is doing a good job at a mid major basketball program, but I don’t think a major reconstruction of a Division I school would be in his wheel house as of yet, and Orlando Antigua might turn out to be a great head coach, but I think it would be hard (but not impossible) to make a jump like that without first being successful at a non Power 6 conference school.

    The last point on Oliver Purnell before I drop the mic is Shane Larkin. Please remember that this is the same Shane Larkin who Oliver Purnell recruited and had enrolled at DePaul University for summer school. Additionally, if you look at the University of Miami, who are currently on the way to the NCAA tournaments Sweet 16, one of the main reasons for their success this year has been attributed to Shane Larkin who transferred from DePaul because of a medical issue to be closer to home. This is the same Shane Larkin who is 1st team All ACC this year as well as 1st team All ACC defensive team and ACC tournament MVP. If Shane Larkin were still at DePaul, Brandon Young would play at his natural position of shooting guard, Jamee Crocket as a small forward and Cleveland Melvin would play as a hybrid 3/4 which is his natural position. Most college teams are 1 or 2 players away from being a totally different team. Ask Michigan State coach, Tom Izzo what his 2000 national championship team would be without Matten Cleaves just in case I’m moving too fast for you.

    #2: Get a New Arena ASAP & #3 Play Games at the United Center

    All you have to do is Google “DePaul” and “arena”, and you can see plenty of articles stating that a new arena or new location for the Blue Demons is imminent. As an internet based publication, I’m pretty sure you are well versed in the uses of Google, but if not, there are plenty of “how to guides” on Youtube. It further confused me as to why you would put this in an article of things that Director of Athletics, Jeanne Lenti Ponsetto is doing wrong when it looks like that is what she is currently doing. While I do agree that a new arena is what DePaul needs to have, it looks to me like that is already in the works. The lease at the All State Arena is expiring soon, and DePaul will have their choice as to where they will go. Playing games at the United Center (your 3rd argument) would look to be the worst option for the Blue Demons as they would be the 3rd team to inhabit the United Center behind the Chicago Bulls and Blackhawks. Scheduling would be a nightmare when you look at the fact that the Bulls and the Blackhawks play 41 home games each at the United Center. DePaul would be relegated to the 12 pm game on Saturdays like the Georgetown Hoyas have to endure at the Verizon Center in Washington DC, and this is really not the best case scenario for a team trying to reconnect with its fan base.

    As a former player, I realize that players and coaches are judged by wins and losses. If you would have stopped after quoting those numbers, there really wasn’t anything I or anyone else could have said, but you didn’t do that. You highlighted facts that really point out why Jeanne Lenti Ponsetto made the correct choice.

    You are right with at least one assessment when you state that having a successful DePaul basketball program shouldn’t be rocket science, but in the world of mega conferences and the dynamics of being a successful Division 1 program, it’s not as simple as you make it seem. Researching for an article and making sure it’s factual and not inflammatory when people’s jobs and reputations are on the line…now that is not rocket science.