DePaul gets a win over G Town, who isnt great....but a WIN is a WIN and for this program its a signature win now.

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"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

When winning a playin game at the conference tourney becomes a signature win.....

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My favorite live college hoops memory is De Paul v. Georgetown with TC led Demons going up against Ewing led Hoyas.

That was a long time ago.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Their best player get kicked out of school because of grades and Purnell has been unable to do much of anything with this program. If this is their signature win for the past 10 years and perhaps next 5 years, its pretty sad.

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I hate to shit on your parade, but here it goes:

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2014/03/11/wisch-a-new-arena-wont-fix-depaul-basketball-alone/


By Dave Wischnowsky-

(CBS) With last-place finishes in the Big East piling up and attendance numbers at Allstate Arena plummeting, DePaul basketball is clearly in need of a fix.

But a new arena in Chicago isn’t going to fix it alone.

And the worry here is that the Blue Demons’ forthcoming $170-million home is going to end up bedeviling taxpayers for years to come.

On Monday, Danny Ecker of Crain’s Chicago Business reported that two and a half years ahead of the scheduled opening of a 10,000-seat DePaul basketball arena next to McCormick Place, the school’s already paltry attendance figures are heading in the wrong direction.

According to Allstate Arena ticket records obtained by Crain’s, DePaul’s men’s basketball attendance dropped 27 percent year over year this season to just more than 1,900 fans per game. The Blue Demons went 11-20 overall and 3-15 in the Big East, securing their sixth straight year of owning at least a share of last place in the conference.

Based on the Ticketmaster scan system, which tracks exactly how many people enter a building, only 30,556 fans actually passed through the turnstiles in Rosemont during the Blue Demons’ 16 regular-season games, according to Crain’s. That total is about 30 percent of the 101,972 fans that DePaul reported as its full-season attendance number, Ecker reported.

With this year’s dip, the average actual attendance at DePaul games over the past four seasons – during which DePaul has gone only 41-75 overall and a woeful 9-63 in the Big East – is just under 2,700 fans per game.

That small number is disturbing considering that last spring the Metropolitan Pier and Expansion Authority (McPier) estimated that DePaul would draw an average attendance of 9,500 fans – or 152,000 total over 16 games – once it moved into the new 10,000-seat event center, which will use at least $70 million in tax money to build, even though it’s a venue intended to primarily benefit a private school.

That means DePaul would need to more than triple its four-year average of 2,700 fans per game – and increase its 2013-14 average of 1,900 fans a whopping five-fold – to meet those lofty projections of 95 percent capacity for the season. Unless Mark Aguirre, Ray Meyer and 1980 are coming back to the DePaul sidelines, that’s just not happening. Not any time soon, at least – and perhaps not ever.

As a point of comparison, the University of Illinois, which boasts a much larger fan base and student enrollment than DePaul, has enjoyed 100 percent capacity only 229 times in 51 years of basketball at the 16,618-seat State Farm Center.

That’s an average of just 4.5 sellouts per season over five decades.

Nevertheless, near capacity for every game is what DePaul – and, by default, taxpayers who likely are on the hook for any revenue shortfalls – will be counting on. DePaul athletic director Jean Lenti Ponsetto told Crain’s on Monday, “I don’t think that 10,000 is an insurmountable number for us. I think it’s very achievable.”

If it is, a new arena won’t achieve those numbers simply because it’s been built. And DePaul’s mere move back to the city after three decades away also won’t account for such an enormous attendance spike, especially since the new event center will still be a lengthy L train ride away from its campus and student body and will also abandon whatever suburban fans the Demons have acquired over the years in Rosemont.

If DePaul is going to benefit from the public’s money with the new arena, then it needs to step up its game, too. Ponsetto, however, instead opted to maintain the status quo when she announced last week that coach Oliver Purnell would return for a fifth season despite losing at least 20 games in each of his first four. In defense of her decision, Ponsetto pointed to Chicagoans Billy Garrett Jr. and Tommy Hamilton – both of whom made the conference’s all-rookie team – and Illinois transfer Myke Henry as home-grown reasons to be optimistic about the future.

But DePaul is going to need more local names – and likely much bigger ones – if it really wants to recapture the imagination of Chicago hoops fans and most importantly get their butts in the event center’s seats.

On Monday, Ponsetto also told Crain’s that she’s had discussions with Chicago’s other college basketball programs about building more buzz around the game in the city, saying, “We all feel like everybody’s trying to come up with the best and most creative ideas on what it is we can do to re-energize college basketball in Chicago, and I don’t think anybody can quite figure out why none of us has had a lot of success the last couple of years.”

For DePaul, it’s been more than the last couple of years, and it’s Ponsetto’s job to figure out why its basketball program hasn’t had success. With the new arena set to break ground in early 2015, she had better figure it out.

Because everyone in Chicago is likely on the hook for the price tab – whether you’re a Blue Demons fan or not.

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All they need to do is play harder. Fans will come flocking to the place.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Uh, maybe because you have shit players?

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Ecclesiastes 5:8

And a shit coach and a shit AD. You are also in a city that has poor weather during the majority of the school year. If I am a prospect out of high school, I'm going to either a program like Duke to get recognized or a program like Florida for the beach and girls.

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And they play in an Arena that is virtually impossible for students to attend games at, and they want to move to another arena that will be difficult for students to get to.

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I don't think the arena location matters to the students as much as people say it does. DePaul is primarily a commuter school. I was in several organizations and it was almost impossible to get people to come to on-campus events. Additionally, when I went there, Quentin Richardson got them in the tournament, but it seemed like no one on campus cared. At the games, it was an alumni majority, especially alumni that still remembered the Ray Meyer era.

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Why don't they just play at the United Center? Easier for students to get there via CTA, especially if they have UPass, and easy for most alumni to get there too.


enter bigfan's "mean evil uncle jerry" rant

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Uncle Jerry probably advised them how to get a lousy, but free facility in an undesirable part of town.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

1900 fans per game is bad. Real bad.

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they could block off like 95% of the arena if they played there

i think more people go to Sky games

It is a big deal. Rosemont sucks and has gotten worse.

DePaul is NOT primarily a commuter school anymore. The have more residents on campus than many small schools. then add the large number that does commutte and the alumni that still live in Chicago and you have a HUGE potential crowd.

Students will come if they win. Simple. Being downtown will make it easier and more students will come, but they need to win.

All the criticism, all the naysayers, etc etc are wrong....but that can only be proven if they win.

Now, how you negotiate that deal of ...We will build it if you win? I dont know, but i do it needed to start at the AD level, DePaul cant continue to spend the least money on the team of any other team in the BIG GOD conference.

Unless this is coming?

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"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

Gainesville is northern and inland.

I'd really like for DePaul to be better than they are, but I can't accept a taxpayer-financed arena on the south side as part of that. That's just nonsense. Like Frank said, at least playing at the United Center would have some benefits.

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But still full of very attractive women.

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I attended a sold out 17,000+ Blitz Arena Bowl game at Rosemont, If Depaul wins people will show up!

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"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

Oh, definitely. I'm friends with a girl who goes to UF and she's in this all-Asian sorority, from which she posts all these pictures and it's like...man, it would be manna from heaven for whichever CSFMBer is the one who's really into Asian girls. Wait a minute, isn't that you?

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I believe that is the esteemed Colonel Angus.

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I didn't realize the number of residents grew by that much. When I was attending, it was primarily in the business corridor on state and Jackson. Most of the people I went to class with lived in the burbs, but never went to games.

I attended a few games that attracted large crowds when Richardson was playing, so I do know fans would be out there. That said, I have NO interest in driving down to the new arena.

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Is there still any chance that someone can halt the arena project? I heard they hit a few not insignificant snags in the area.

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