Ky McKeon
It was Tuesday night and I had nothing to do, so I Ubered down to the ole Wintrust Arena to catch Chicago’s Big Ten team (the DePaul Blue Demons) play the Duquesne Dukes.
An unexpectedly cool part of the night was learning I would be sitting courtside, something I have never done as a fan or as a media member. Being that close to the action was a surreal experience. I was right next to the Duquesne bench and could literally touch the players next to me (I didn’t, though high fives were tempting).
Buono stands and says something mildly amusing
The arena was empty. There might have been as many Duquesne family members there as actual DePaul fans. But no matter – the Demons dominated.
Duquesne’s bench was chirping early, led by walk-on Noah Buono who did not shut up for the entirety of the contest. To his credit, he got in some pretty funny chirps. To his debit, most were annoying and most of his teammates didn’t seem to love them.
Keith Dambrot, a coaching legend who looks like a lovable teddy bear, didn’t say a single word about the trash talking bench, and I for one love that. Let them talk!
Duquesne started the game competitively. It was back and forth for the entire first half, and the Dukes looked to be about equal to the mighty Demons. My first reaction when seeing DePaul’s lineup up close was: holy shit these guys are huge. At one point Tony Stubblefield trotted out a lineup that included Yor Anei (6’10”), Nick Ogenda (6’11”) and David Jones (6’6” but LONG), which physically engulfed the smaller, stouter Dukes.
Ogenda floating the ball to the tin
Since this was my first up and close and personal experience with most of these players, I had to form some quick gut reactions:
David Jones (DePaul) is a stud – where did this guy come from? He glides to the rim.
Javon Freeman-Liberty (DePaul) is a stud – incredible improvement from last season; he’s an All-Big East caliber player.
Primo Spears (Duquesne) is the type of player you can tell is very good, but he’s yet to really break through
Tre Williams (Duquesne) was a dominant post presence and used deft footwork and power to finish through the trees all night
The game was back and forth during the first half right until one of the other Duquesne walk-ons yelled to the on-court DePaul players, “I thought you were supposed to be good! You’re not!”
DePaul point guard Jalen Terry followed up that weak chirp with a triple and DePaul headed into the locker room up 36-30.
Duquesne came out firing to start the second, going on a quick 5-0 run, but DePaul punched right back and then some. The Demons proceeded to make their next eight shots, and the teams combined to score 30 points in the half’s first five minutes. Under backers (i.e. Me) were extremely disappointed.
From then on it was all DePaul. The Demons led by six at the under-12 timeout and then extended the lead to 14 by the under-8. The Dukes had scoring droughts galore and the Demons could not miss.
At the under-4, things had simply gotten out of hand. There was significantly less chirping coming from the Duquesne bench and the Demons led 82-58 with 2:46 to play.
The band started chanting, “warm up the bus”, to which one of the Duquesne assistants said, “it’s a charter, not a bus.” That made me giggle.
The game ended 87-67. DePaul easily covered the 8-point spread and improved to 7-1 on the young season.
Couple takeaways:
DePaul
This team is legit. The schedule isn’t quite there to declare them a Tournament caliber squad quite yet, but there is so much length, size, and athleticism on this roster
In JFL and Jones, DePaul has two guys it can go to for a score late in the clock or during clutch situations. You can even throw in Terry there if you want, and former Western Michigan / Minnesota transfer Brandon Johnson ain’t too shabby either.
Get your f*cking fans in the seats. You relocated the arena to help do this. Sure, it wasn’t a marquee opponent, but it was a very sad turnout.
Duquesne
This team feels young and there appears to be some attitude issues. Multiple guys came off the court in anger, hitting things, saying things that point to immaturity. The team, frankly, doesn’t seem to like each other, and it’s very clear on the court they don’t trust each other. There seems to be an invisible riff splitting the roster.
Please take that with a grain of salt. It is all conjecture and I do not have actual inside information on the Duquesne locker room.