- Ky McKeon

Last night was a dream come true for the DePaul faithful, a once proud fanbase supporting a once great program. The Blue Demons haven’t reached the NCAA Tournament since 2004 and haven’t been consistently relevant since the 1980s, but with their latest victory over last year’s national runner-up, bringing their record to a flawless 9-0, Dave Leitao appears to have a Tourney team on his hands.

I arrived at Wintrust Arena, DePaul’s year-old South Loop venue, about an hour before game time. This was my second time at the arena and first as credentialed media. Wintrust is very nice and has that “new arena smell” but the concourses around the concession stands are impossibly narrow – like opposite of throwing a hot dog down a hallway narrow. But everything else about the place scores high marks with me: I love the old school team name flags of fellow Big East schools hanging in the rafters; I love the Chicago skyline painted on the floor; I love that the arena sells beer. The fans were out in good numbers, I’m told, for a typical DePaul game. Though the arena was about 50-60% full, this was DePaul’s most attended game of the season and possibly most attended game in the last few years (check me on that one). The lower bowl was full at least and you could feel the passion in the air from fans yearning for a win and a sign that their beloved basketball program is actually, finally good.

And, of course, there was this guy:

The scoring started with a Jalen Coleman-Lands three, perfect foreshadowing for future events to come. My initial impressions upon seeing this DePaul team live can be summed up as so: 1) Paul Reed is awesome and ridiculously athletic and 2) Charlie Moore is lightning quick. Reed and Moore led the Demons’ defense, which stymied the Raiders all night despite Beard’s squad’s patented patience on offense. Tech guard Davide Moretti couldn’t get anything off the bounce against Moore and the paint was locked down with Reed lurking on the help-side off drives, waiting to pounce on attempted shots. Tech had plenty of open looks from the outside to start the game, but nothing was falling, a theme that would continue throughout the night for both teams.

At the under 12:00 timeout, the score stood 14-9 in favor of Texas Tech. It was an ugly affair up to this point thanks to the outstanding defensive play on both sides. I really cannot emphasize enough how impressed I was with DePaul’s defense, something Dave Leitao harped on in the post-game presser as being a focus for his team in the early season. The Raiders move the ball really well on offense and are one of the more unselfish teams I’ve seen this year. Whether that’s due to Jahmi’us Ramsey’s absence or the true nature of the squad, Tech made DePaul guard for 25-30 seconds every single possession. One interesting quirk I noticed pretty quickly about Tech’s offense was that Chris Clarke, a 6’6” transfer from Virginia Tech, was essentially running point for the Raiders. Most possessions consisted of Clarke catching the ball at the top of the key and then holding it for about 5-10 seconds as his teammates ran off screens and cut to the hoop. Seriously, Clarke held the ball so much it was frustrating – there’s a fine line between being patient and being a ball stopper and Clarke toed that line all night. His antics reminded me of this golden scene from the Simpsons:

Tech was in control for most of the first half, dominating the offensive glass and stymieing DePaul shooters on the other end, but then went through a 6:05 minute scoring drought which allowed the Demons to rattle off an 8-0 run and take the lead at the under 4:00 timeout. For how well Tech moved the ball in the beginning of the game, standing and staring became the mantra of a suddenly stagnant offense. Meanwhile on the other end, the Demons were taking advantage of Moore’s ability to knife through the lane at will and find Reed or Jaylen Butz for a drop-off pass and dunk. The Raiders were able to bounce back near the end of the half to take a three-point advantage into the locker room but anyone who watched the first half knew DePaul was the team that should have had the lead. If you told Leitao before the game his squad would shoot 9/25 from the field, 2/10 from 3, and 3/8 from the free throw line and be down just three at half, he’d take that scenario 1,000 times out of 1,000.

The first 12 minutes of the second half were an even uglier affair than the first 20. The scores at the end of the first three media timeouts were as follows: 30-30, 34-34, 38-38. TJ Holyfield, a ghost all game for Texas Tech, picked up his third foul early in the half, Charlie Moore continued his 0-fer streak from the floor (finished 2/15), and both teams continued to turn the ball over at rapid rates. The shining lights for either team were Terrence Shannon for Texas Tech, who began asserting his will on offense nearly every possession, and DePaul’s improvement on the offensive glass – particularly from role player Darious Hall who grabbed four offensive rebounds in the first 12 minutes of the second half.

Riding Shannon, a Lincoln Park High School grad who clearly wanted to show-out for his native city, Texas Tech appeared to finally be in control of the game heading into the final media timeout. DePaul’s 6/12 free throw performance (mainly Jaylen Butz) and inability to hit an outside shot (just TWO made threes up until this point) combined with Shannon’s dominance on the offensive end resulted in Tech taking its biggest lead of the game (50-44) since 16-9 in the first half into the final media timeout. It was a good effort by the Blue Demons, but ultimately it looked like DePaul was doomed to come up short in its biggest game of the year to date…

…that is unless Jalen Coleman-Lands goes Super Saiyan in the final four minutes of regulation. JCL burst out of the TV timeout with an enormous bucket, which was followed by two completely inept possessions by the Raiders, almost as if they were begging the Demons to take this game from them. A Butz dunk cut the Tech lead to 52-50 with just 25.5 seconds left in the game. After a controversial bail-out timeout granted to Chris Beard and a DePaul foul on Moretti, Tech had its best free throw shooter on the line with 17 seconds left and a two-point lead. Coming into the game, Moretti was 17/17 from the charity stripe. Last year, Moretti knocked down 92.4% of his free throw attempts, the 5th best mark in the country. Surely, he would convert both at the end of this game and seal the Demons’ fate. WRONG. Moretti clanked the second FT off the rim into the hands of the Demon rebounders. And on DePaul’s final possession of regulation, Jalen Coleman-Lands put his nuts on the table and knocked down the game-tying three – DePaul’s ONLY made three-point field goal of the second half. The crowd erupted; I swear I saw tears.

Overtime was a tense affair with both teams not budging an inch on either end. DePaul continued its ice-cold shooting and for some reason ignored Paul Reed on offense, a guy who was scoring basically at will throughout the game. Tech opened up a 57-53 lead with 2:05 left in the game when, you guessed it, Jalen Coleman-Big-Game-Put-A-Hand-In-My-Face-Lands knocked down an ENORMOUS three out of a timeout and followed that up by drawing an offensive foul on the other end. Suddenly DePaul found itself down one with the ball in its hands and under 2:00 to play. A backdoor cut by Romeo Weems off another slick feed from Moore put the Demons up one as the three-or-four-or-five-beer-deep crowd jumped around like they were listening to House of Pain. Terrence Shannon quickly hushed the crowd with another three of his own, bringing his point total to 24 for the night. Surely, this was it for DePaul…

… HOLY SHIT IT’S JALEN-COLEMAN-WHY-WONT-YOU-GUARD-ME-I-TOLD-YOU-TO-GUARD-ME-LANDS!!! Yes, JCL answered Shannon’s three with his fourth three of the night. After a Tech miss, Beard smartly fouled Jaylen Butz off the ball down one with 25.4 seconds left. Butz was just 3/9 from the free throw line heading into his two biggest attempts of the night, and sadly missed both to keep the Tech door open. The Demons fought off the Butz miss to force Tech to knock the ball out of bounds and then Moore made an incredible diving effort to save a turnover in the Demon backcourt setting up JCL for two free throws with 13 seconds left. I don’t really need to tell you that Jalen-Coleman-I’m-Cold-As-Ice-Lands made both free throws, you already knew that. Down three, Shannon rushed a deep three on Tech’s offensive end and just like that the game was over, DePaul had picked up their 4th huge win of the year and remained undefeated on the season.

DePaul students started a timid court rush that grew slowly as fans wept with joy at the realization that their basketball team is actually, finally good. What a night.