Creighton is the only game in town and they have very rich donors. The only competition they have is Nebraska basketball. Providence is the same way. St. John's gets to play in MSG and NYC is actually less fractured in terms of fan bases. The Big Ten teams + Notre Dame have a stranglehold on Chicago. I'm guessing there are more Michigan fans in Chicago than there are DePaul fans. Plus, the East Coast schools get a far better travel schedule given where most Big East teams exist along with far more important long term rivalries.

Everyone thinks DePaul's location is an advantage. It really isn't. The bigger schools take whoever they want from Chicago and the suburbs and now with NIL they will have no problem doing it whenever they want. So DePaul is already recruiting at a mid major level in their home area.

Now maybe if DePaul had been good recently it would be different but Butler seems to be showing that even that didn't really matter. Butler joining the Big East has been a big mistake so far. Creighton has done better than I have thought though.

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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 think the "being good" part is the key. When Ray Meyer was running things they were by far the biggest show in town - bigger than the Bulls or any Big-10 team. Then Joey took over and the recruiting started to slide. A series of mid-tier coaches with little local name recognition followed and doomed them to 3rd-rate players. If they hit on the right coach I think it could change. JORR mentioned Aguirre, which is an interesting name if he were actually interested. I'm not sure what kind of budget DePaul has for coaching but what about other local legends like Doc Rivers or Tim Hardaway? Is Maurice Cheeks still on the Bulls staff?

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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

A Big East team has won the NCAA Tournament three times since 2016. The conference doesn't appear to be at a disadvantage, especially when you consider that a Big 10 Team hasn't won the Tournament since 2000.

In terms of DePaul's failures, I attribute them to the following:

1. The snowball effect of repeated losing;
2. The lack of an interesting or energizing environment at home games. They're not going to build an on-campus arena in Lincoln Park anytime soon, but they should consider playing more games at McGrath Arena (where the women play); and
3. It's harder to make noise in Chicago. As others have said, a good college basketball team in Milwaukee, Omaha, or Providence is going to capture more local attention than a good college basketball team in Chicago. It wasn't that long ago that Loyola was in the Final Four, but they've already sunk back into obscurity.

I disagree on that last point. The issue is consistency. In the late 70's & early 80's they were the toast of the town. Also, Marquette is well below the Packers, Bucks and Brewers in terms of interest.

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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

NIL is a fairly recent development though Connecticut basketball is strong enough to not only handle it but probably thrive. Just like Gonzaga, a conference is more than just the one dominant team.

I think Jay Wright saw the writing on the wall and retired relatively early.

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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 mean, assuming we aren't talking about a hypothetical DePaul that was a winner the past 30 years, it isn't going to happen even if they are good. At best, they'll be a second favorite team of Northwestern and Iowa fans who live in Chicago similar to the Loyola bandwagon fans. When it comes to the NIL donations that are vital to win in college basketball now they aren't going to be getting them. When Coleman Hawkins can make as high as $500k a year where is DePaul going to be on that?

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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!

Maybe Lawrence can set up some lucrative NIL deals.

I'm not sure, but DePaul is a pretty big school. Richard Dreihaus is dead though.

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Don't take it personally.

It's not fair to mention any team in relation to the Packers. They're so far and away #1. But Marquette has had a strong following for as long as I can remember. I think they benefited from the rising tide of Madison and Milwaukee both having decent basketball programs around the same time. I can assure you, people went years without caring one bit about the Bucks. They were the basketball Blackhawks.

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that looks like a scene from a middle school girls basketball game

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

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I'll take non-committal reporting for $500 Alex. All kidding aside, I would like to be excited by this news, but it sounds like it's in keeping with the DePaul tradition of the last quarter century of hiring tired old men.

Was there any truth that allegations of Pat Kennedy's bad recruiting practices caused Ponsetto and the administration to avoid big-name coaches? I remember hearing that a few time from people connected to the school.

When I worked at the Allstate Arena and later attended DePaul in the 90's, most of the fanbase consisted of older alumni still pining for the past. On campus, basketball never felt hyped in any way, even though they had Quentin Richardson at the time. There also seemed to be a million reasons why the school couldn't compete. Games were played an hour away from the campus. The school had too many commuters with no connection to activities outside of classes. There wasn't a football team to bring in additional revenue. The administration didn't want to spend money on a new stadium near Cabrini back in the 90's. Joey Meyer had broken the relationship with CPS coaches. DePaul coaches were from out of state and couldn't recruit the Chicago schools. The eligibility standards were too strict to get more talented players. Chicago is too cold in the winter so it hurt recruiting. The campus nightlife wasn't great outside a stretch near Lincoln and Halsted. The list goes on.

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Is Moser being pushed out at OU?

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

The biggest mistake they ever made was moving the games to Rosemont.

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Don't take it personally.

What % of DePaul students are commuters?

One of the best things Loyola did for its basketball program (and the entire school more broadly) was to increase its on-campus housing capacity.

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Also, when DePaul basketball was in its heyday, wasn't its popularity amplified more by "subway alums" than actual DePaul students? I remember a bunch of my older relatives--including my great uncle who was a CTA bus driver and my grandmother, who didn't have a high school diploma--being rabid DePaul fans. Working-class Catholics adopted DePaul as their team in the pre-Jordan era.

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I believe that. When I attended U of I I was a DePaul fan who hated Illini basketball.

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Don't take it personally.

So it's Chris Holtmann, who is a better choice than Porter Moser anyways.

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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!

Given the majority of names that were floated this is a decent hire.

It is a great hire for Depaul considering where they have been.

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

It's in keeping with hires like Wainwright and Purnell, a guy who is over the age of 50 and who previously took a team to the NCAA Tournament. Those other two promptly failed at DePaul (although Wainwright did go to the NIT) and I expect failure out of this new guy as well.

I would have liked to see them hire an assistant at a good program that's under the age of 40. They haven't really done that since the first Leitao hire.

That's also a roll of the dice. Both scenarios kinda suck but that's where Depaul is. They created this clusterfuck.

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Wattabout Kodak Black?

Have said this before....A lot of Southwest Siders passively pulled for them, and when they inevitably lost in the first round, they said, "See, I told ya so. Those (African-Americans) are a bunch of losers." Lots of neighborhood people said the same thing about Illinois; they preferred Indiana. I had to watch the Illini and the Demons on the sly. No joke.

DePaul was also not always the first choice because they played Notre Dame (they were actually decent then) twice a year and because DePaul was on the gay North Side.

Foolishness. They were # 1 for parts of four or five straight seasons. A neighborhood plumber was fixing our sink and my dad asked him what he thought of Terry Cummings leaving early for the NBA. "Good riddance," he said.

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Not comparable. Wainwright was a total clown.

True, but the last time they tried it (Leitao I) it worked.

Wainwright had more success than any of the guys who followed him.