Can't really play worse than their seed.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

They win their first round tournament game about once every four years. However, this year they were particularly bad, even by their standards. Therefore, I was surprised that this year was that one out of four.

Leading Xavier with 5 mins to go. Playing well!

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Way to jinx it

They led for virtually that entire game. It's been an exciting end to an otherwise crap pile of a season. That being said, Stubblefield is no better than the other washed up coaches that preceeded him.

0-2 to start the season, losing by 8 to Purdue Fort Wayne and by 4 to Long Beach State. While they have a game against Chicago State, it's very possible they lose 20+ games this season. Sad to see this program continue to be completely irrelevant.

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I didn't even know that Purdue Fort Wayne existed until I saw that they lost that game.

They beat South Dakota tonight. I know, I know they are not Ft. Wayne, but still.

Chicago State just beat ranked Northwestern.

There goes my bracket

Depaul v. Northwestern tomorrow. I was hoping Depaul could sneak up on them, but given the fact that Northwestern should be focused after losing to Chicago State and DePaul might be overconfident after beating Louisville, I don't see that happening.

Mid-season shit canning for Tony Stubblefield, an unusual move by DePaul standards.

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-baske ... art-season

Any preferences here...https://theathletic.com/5151916/2024/01/22/depaul-coaching-candidates-becker-senderoff-wardle/

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“Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office.”- JD Vance
“My god, what an !diot.”- JD Vance tweet on Trump
“I’m a ‘Never Trump’ guy”- JD Vance

The article is pay-walled and I couldn't read it. However, I have been reading speculation about the following candidates: Will Wade (I'd be willing to overlook some shady practices for an NCAA appearance), Tom Crean (he fits their mold of a tired old man in his 50's), and Bryce Drew (I had no idea he was a coach, but he does appear to be enjoying some success at Grand Canyon).

Sorry, I didn't realize it was behind a paywall (you can get many Atlantic columns free just by signing up with an email).

There's a bit of a lead-in before the coaching list which I omitted, but the gist is they are not a major program anymore and should target a mid-major coach who has shown the ability to play above their skill level.

Call list (in alphabetical order)By Brian Hamilton (one-time Trib writer)

John Becker, Vermont head coach. Want a do-more-with-less coach, eager for an opportunity in the higher echelons? How about the guy who has won 71.4 percent of his games over 13 years, making five out of a possible 11 NCAA Tournaments and winning the America East regular season title four other times? It’s a jump. It’s a gamble. Becker would have to recruit at a high level outside of his Northeast comfort zone. If DePaul wants a showman, he’s not the guy. But Becker is a proven commodity who wants to prove himself even more.

Rashon Burno, Northern Illinois head coach. DePaul has made two NCAA Tournament appearances since the turn of the century. Burno was on one of those teams. It’d purely be a bet on a former player knowing how to unlock the program’s potential, because Burno’s record is extremely thin (28-51 in DeKalb) and his team lost by 22 to power-conference opponents Marquette and Northwestern this season. But Northern Illinois did take down one such foe: It beat DePaul by 10 on Nov. 25.

Mark Byington, James Madison head coach. Surely another hot name for the carousel after turning the Dukes into a top 25-caliber outfit — an actually enormous feat. We know Byington can coach, but much like Becker, the hesitation might be bringing in a guy not entirely familiar with the Midwest. But then if DePaul is aiming for a national recruiting reach, does that even matter?

Bryce Drew, Grand Canyon. It’s pretty comfortable living out in the desert with measured expectations and ample institutional and fan support for the basketball program. But it’s still a WAC job. And Drew is still a guy who cut his teeth in the Midwest as a player and coach. His three years at Vanderbilt look increasingly like a bad luck-laden blip, given that he’s winning at a 73.6 percent clip at Grand Canyon.

Justin Gainey, Tennessee associate head coach. Playing suffocating defense is a very quick way to compete with lesser talent. Gainey essentially has run Tennessee’s defense the past two years, and the Volunteers led the nation in efficiency in 2022-23 and rank second this season as of Monday. Gainey has a touch of Midwest experience with two stops at Marquette, and the SEC pedigree might catch Peevy’s eye. Is DePaul willing to roll the dice on another assistant coach hire, though?

Josh Schertz, Indiana State head coach. The 48-year-old won 83 percent of his games as a Division II head coach and now has turned a Missouri Valley program into a winner with one of the best offenses in the country. The Sycamores were 16-3 and ranked No. 42 nationally on KenPom.com as of Monday morning with an attack that ranked No. 23 in adjusted efficiency. The trick? Making a ton of shots. Indiana State ranks second nationally in both 2-point shooting (60 percent) and 3-point shooting (41.6).

Rob Senderoff, Kent State head coach. Here is the total of sub-.500 seasons the Golden Flashes have endured since 2011-12: zero. Not one losing season at a job that is no piece of cake, where you have to scour the earth for players and take your chances on recruits. Senderoff’s hire won’t be a tectonic event in the Chicago market. But maybe DePaul shouldn’t worry about that and instead find a guy who’s won at a place not too dissimilar.

Will Wade, McNeese State head coach. As a statement of intent, it wouldn’t be much clearer. DePaul would be going all in on a man who does what it takes to get dudes — and who doesn’t have to deal with as many rules to get them anymore — while also putting a competitive product on the floor. McNeess State is 16-2 and comfortably within the KenPom top 100 as of late January. In fact, the market’s general ambivalence to the sport might work in favor of hiring a guy who started the season on a 10-game, NCAA-imposed suspension.

Brian Wardle, Bradley head coach. He’s built winners from the bottom up at both Green Bay and now Bradley, where the Braves won five games in Wardle’s first season and now have two Missouri Valley Conference tournament championships and one regular season title in the last five seasons. He’s an Illinois native and a Midwest lifer and, at 44, should have the patience and energy for a prolonged build.

And the hire is…
Most outsiders believe DePaul won’t risk handing the gig to another assistant — or at least not one without a deep, deep reservoir of experience. And most believe Peevy and Co. should prioritize true, proven basketball coaching aptitude over talent acquisition, given the shape of the Big East. In that case? Bring aboard a mid-major coach like Becker or Senderoff or Wardle and raise the floor, for starters.

_________________
“Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office.”- JD Vance
“My god, what an !diot.”- JD Vance tweet on Trump
“I’m a ‘Never Trump’ guy”- JD Vance

There is no logical reason why Marquette should be so competitive every year while DePaul plays like a Division II team.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Kash, and Don

DePaul can't compete with Chicago's Big Ten team*.

*-Suburbs = Chicago.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I dont see why any of those guys would want to leave their current situations for Depaul.

Depaul would be better off to go beg Tom Kleinschmidt to move up from his high school job.

_________________
"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

With the possible exception of Bruno, anyone of those guys would be an improvement over the people they've hired in the past. That being said, I would like to see them hire someone 45 or younger who has had head coaching success at some smaller program. I don't even care if it's Division II. I don't want someone who is looking for a semiretirement gig or someone who has been an assistant for 20 years.

Or Aguirre who would love to coach there. At least maybe he could recruit some guys who can play.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Kash, and Don

Its Kind of rough as one of my very best friends since we were teenagers is on the staff there. I've actually met Stubblefield before and he seems like a cool dude. But he didn't get it done and that's kind of what happens when you don't.

A dark horse candidate to look for is Ronald "Chin" Coleman.Kentucky Assistant and Former Illinois Assistant with big time Chicago ties.

His name was dropped about a month ago as someone DePaul would grab if they made a move on Stubblefield.

He'd definitely be able to "recruit Chicago" but the question is why would you want to? There isn't much you'd want out of Chicago these days. The legendary Chicago pipeline is a thing of the past. Public League is at its weakest point ever and there isn't much you'd want out of the Catholic League either. There isn't one kid in the state save for possibly the Freshman class that you'd consider a "Blue chipper". Not one. Whoever they grab is definitely going to have to go national.

Another thing (as someone told me a few weeks ago) which is problematic for DePaul is that there really isn't much in the way of NIL money for top kids if they sign there. Which is the new reality for kids when they start looking at colleges. They want to know that those opportunities are available if they sign.

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Marquette wants to emphasize its basketball program and DePaul doesn't. Consider that Marquette pretty much functioned as Milwaukee's basketball team during the Bucks' 20-year dark night of the soul before Giannis showed up.

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When DePaul Hired Stubblefield, Jon Scheyer wanted the job badly and actually believed that he had the job. He actually began calling around to tell people that he had the gig and then DePaul pulled the rug out from under him and Hired Stubblefield.

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That's the point. Why wouldn't DePaul want to have a good program? They could just drop down a division. They came close to deemphasizing the program and doing that in the early 70s. Then came Norwood-Pancratz-Corzine-Garland-Aguirre-Cummings. There's a lot of tradition there. If they're going to have a Division I program, there's no reason for it to be this awful.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Kash, and Don

I don't know about that. Morez Johnson is probably the best player from Illinois since Jabari Parker. He's probably a one-and-done for the Illini.

Also, the two sophomores at Benet are big time players. The big man is raw but by the time he's a senior he should be a "blue chipper.' And Sularski is a stud right now.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Kash, and Don

DePaul is such a strange situation. Even a small town like Pittsburgh can support smaller D1 ball. There are like four here that do better than DePaul and even with Pitt here. For chrissake tiny Point Park just cracked top 25

Edit My bad Point is not close to D1.

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Elections have consequences.

umm, I think you are missing the guy with the good blood lines currently playing on roosevelt road

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

My bad. I pretty much had him graduated already. He's a top 25 kid nationally and definitely a blue chipper. Jeremy Fears younger brother would be considered that but he transferred to a Prep School out of state. I actually played on the same team as his uncle in High School and he along with his brother both told me 2 years ago that he was better than Jeremy. Now it seems to have come true. 5 Star prospect and currently ranked 16th on ESPN's list.

The Sophomore Gabe? Is considered a 4-5 star prospect but the 7 footer isn't. At least not yet anyway. I think the 6'8 kid is 40th in the class.
My point is that "WE" in the state used to average at least 1-2 McDonald's All Americans and 6-8 top 100 kids each and every year. Now we're scrambling year to to find 1-2 and they're usually in the bottom 3rd of the rankings. Definitely has been a major dropoff in talent.

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They need to drop down a level. No chance they can compete in modern big time college basketball. They are at a disadvantage to every other Big East team and those teams are almost all at a disadvantage to any team in the P4 football conferences. Butler has every advantage over DePaul and Butler still can't handle the Big East either and should also drop down too.

DePaul likely has the worst NIL situation in the conference. There is not going to be any local fanbase for DePaul given how pretty much everyone in Chicago already has a college team. You aren't going to sell recruits on staying home when most games are against teams from the East Coast and one from Nebraska. Even if you get good, Illinois, Michigan, and other Big Ten schools are going to take your players unless you have enough rich alumni to fund $500k+ NIL deals.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

what are the institutional advantages Creighton, Providence, St. John's, etc. have over Depaul?

It's not even a commuter school any more and the campus is beautiful.

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