Under Dave Leitao, the long-slumbering DePaul men’s basketball program is beginning to awaken. They won 20 games last season and advanced to the finals of the CBI, and began this season 12-1 with road wins over NCAA Tournament caliber teams Iowa, Minnesota and Boston College. But just as they started to earn national attention, they started conference play 0-4, as they repeatedly couldn’t find a way to put teams away or to make winning plays in close games — they led 21-8 at Villanova and 35-25 against Seton Hall but lost both. They lost 66-65 against Providence in a game where neither team could get separation. And they lost 74-67 at St. John’s.
Saturday against #5 Butler, they finally put together a full 40 minutes of basketball, and it was impressive. The Blue Demons led 20-6 and never trailed, eventually building a lead as big as 21 points (70-49) in a 79-66 win. They’re talented, they’re figuring out how to win in the Big East, and they’re built in the mold of teams that have given this Bluejay team fits.
Marquette’s Markus Howard and Seton Hall’s Myles Powell get most of the “Player of the Year” hype in the Big East, and with good reason. Their excellence has caused DePaul’s 6’9″ junior forward Paul Reed to fly under the radar a bit — despite the fact that he’s probably the best NBA prospect in the league, and is the only player in the Big East averaging a double-double (15.9 points and 11.2 rebounds). He ranks second in the Big East in blocks (2.9 per game). He’s third in steals (1.9 per game). Reed puts his fingerprints on games in lots of ways, and has been remarkably consistent at doing it. He’s scored in double figures in all but two games. He’s had seven or more rebounds in every single game, and has eclipsed nine rebounds in every game but two. And he’s efficient, making 71.8% (that’s not a typo) of his shots at the rim; 103 of his 216 shots have come at the rim, making that percentage even more impressive than it is on the surface.
Making things even more difficult on defenses? Reed is not your prototypical catch-the-ball-on-the-block big man. Less than half of his shots at the rim have been assisted; he’s a big man that creates his own shots off the dribble.
On occasion this season, he’s been almost unstoppable. Like against Providence, when he had 24 points, 15 rebounds, three blocks and three steals, on 10-of-15 shooting. Or against Villanova, where he had 18 points and 15 rebounds on 9-of-14 shooting — and added two blocks and five steals just because. Or against Butler, where he had 23 points and 9 boards, making 8-of-9 from the floor and showing off his three-point shooting skills by making 2-of-3 from long range. He tore up Iowa, too, notching 25 points, 12 rebounds, two blocks and four steals while making 7-of-10 inside the arc and 3-of-4 outside of it.
Creighton almost has no choice but to throw a double-team at Reed at least part of the night. He’s too good one-on-one for most defenders regardless of their size, and CU can’t match his size, obviously. When he catches it near the paint it’s already too late to stop him. So when the Jays do opt to double-team Reed, they have to be extremely detail-oriented on their close-outs and rotations.
Where it gets interesting is in how they defend 6’9″, 225-pound Jaylen Butz. He averages 11.7 points and 6.0 rebounds per game, and is nearly as efficient at the rim as Reed — Butz makes 68.8% of his shots at the rim. He’s more of a traditional post-up player when he plays near the paint than Reed is, and that creates a lot of havoc for defenses to contend with.
DePaul’s guards are talented, too, and much improved over a year ago. Chicago native Charlie Moore, a 5’11” 180-pound guard playing for his third school in four years (after stints at Cal and Kansas), actually leads the team in scoring at 16.1 points per game. He has a 2:1 assist to turnover ratio, with 122 assists (6.7 per game to lead the Big East) to just 67 turnovers. And he averages just under two steals per game. He’s lightning quick, he’s smooth off the dribble, and he can score from all three levels. He’s a good three-point shooter (39.1%, 33-of-97), and it’s tricky to guard him closely on the perimeter because he’s crafty and quick enough to drive around you to get into the lane, where he creates shots for teammates or for himself. If there’s a knock on Moore, it’s that he takes a lot of shots to get his points, but he’s a terrific player having a great season.
Jalen Coleman-Lands is third in scoring at 11.7 points per game, and is a good barometer for DePaul’s success. Coleman-Lands has made 39.7% of his three-pointers in DePaul’s 13 wins, and 23.1% in their five losses.
A lot of what DePaul does offensively appears unstructured on purpose; they average 34 offensive rebounds per game, and thrive in situations where they catch the defense out of position after a rebound. Their best offense is, as WBR’s Matt DeMarinis said so eloquently on the Bluejay Beat Podcast following Saturday’s win, “dudes being dudes.” That lack of structure has hurt them in close games, when relying on second-chance points is an unpredictable way to live.
Regardless, these aren’t the Blue Demons of yesteryear. They have more talent, they’re more cohesive, and when they win games in the Big East it’s no longer considered an upset.
- Tip: 8:00pm
- Venue: Wintrust Arena, Chicago, IL
- TV: CBSSN
- Announcers: Dave Ryan and Steve Wolff
- In Omaha: Cox channel 234 (SD), 1234 (HD); CenturyLink Prism channel 643 (SD), 1643 (HD)
- Outside Omaha: CBSSN Channel Finder
- Satellite: DirecTV channel 221; Dish Network channel 158
- Streaming info
- Radio: 1620AM
- Announcers: John Bishop and Brody Deren
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- For Cord Cutters
- The Blue Demons have blocked at least five shots 14 of 18 games including seven games with at least seven rejections. In 99 games the three previous seasons (2017-19), the team blocked at least seven shots in just three games total. In that same period, DePaul blocked at least five shots in a game a total of just 23 times.
- DePaul is 30-for-92 in Big East games from three-point range (32%) but had been just 20-for-75 (26%) before Saturday’s win at Butler. They made 10-of-17 from long range in that game.
- Paul Reed’s 12 double-doubles this season are third-most in the country, and first in the Big East.
- Marcus Zegarowski’s go-ahead three-pointer with 3.2 seconds left on Saturday helped beat Providence, and was the latest game-winner in a Bluejay win at home since some heroics from Doug McDermott against St. John’s in 2014. Creighton is now 8-8 in games with a game-winning go-ahead score in the final 10 seconds at CHI Health Center Omaha, which opened in the fall of 2003.
- Mitch Ballock leads the Big East with 35.9 minutes per game, a number that soars to 38.3 minutes per contest in league play, as he’s played all but 10 minutes in CU’s first six league games. CU is the nation’s only team with three men averaging 34.4 minutes per game or more, but no Bluejay has led a conference in minutes per game (all games) since at least 1996-97.
- Creighton has won at DePaul each of the previous six seasons, just the second different opponent in program history that the Jays have beaten on the road in six or more consecutive campaigns. They never did it against any opponent in the Missouri Valley — the only other opponent they beat that many times in a row on the road is Grinnell College from 1929-30 to 1935-36.
Creighton has won 15 of the last 16 meetings with DePaul to take a 20-16 lead in the all-time series. Thirteen of the last 14 meetings in the series have been decided by double-figures, with the exception being Creighton’s first trip to Wintrust Arena in 2018 where CU prevailed, 76-75, on a late three-pointer by Bluejay star Marcus Foster.
Creighton is 13-1 in the series since joining the Big East, including 10 straight victories.
In last year’s regular season finale, Mitch Ballock blasted into the record books with a program-best 11 made three-pointers. He was a perfect 5-of-5 in the first half, and 6-of-7 in the second, spreading out his destruction equally across the course of the game. And the final pair of threes were among the biggest shots of the game — doubling a six-point lead with 6:58 to play into a 12-point lead 90 seconds later and effectively ending whatever hopes DePaul had of winning.
Just 19 D1 players in NCAA history have ever made more threes in a game than Ballock did in that game. And no one has ever done it as efficiently as he did — he was 11-for-12 (91.7%) to set the NCAA record for three-point shooting percentage with at least 12 attempts. This was truly a game for the ages; years from now when “The Mitch Ballock Game” is mentioned, Creighton fans everywhere will nod their heads and know exactly what game is being talked about.
Randomly, Creighton has never played on January 22 in the Big East era. The last game on this date came back in 2011, a 67-66 loss at Missouri State on ESPN2 where they blew a 15-point second half lead. In 2008, they also squandered a second half lead in an OT loss at #22 Drake, 68-60, and were outscored 14-6 in the extra period. They managed to win 77-58 over Evansville in 2006. But they lost, again in OT after blowing a second-half lead, 82-77 against Illinois State in 2005. It was a pretty rough date historically during the late-MVC era, in other words.
So let’s go even further back to find a better memory. On January 22, 2002, Brody Deren scored 16 points as the Jays led from start to finish and beat Wichita State 67-55 in Wichita. Unlike future games on that date, Creighton (12-5, 7-1 Missouri Valley) put the Shockers away with a 13-4 run that made it 57-46 with 5:08 remaining. Reserve Ismael Caro led the surge with four points on a basket and a pair of free throws.
If they build a lead this year, here’s hoping they put the Blue Demons away. Karma on this date is not on their side.
In honor of the great Ozzy Osbourne, who announced his Parkinson’s diagnosis on Tuesday.
The Bottom Line:
DePaul is favored pretty much everywhere you look in this one — Vegas, KenPom, ESPN’s BPI. It’ll be a battle, but I think Creighton makes the shots they missed in their last road game at Georgetown, and comes out victorious.
Bluejays 79, Blue Demons 75