Bad Luck at DePaul Continues

[MUBoxer]

I've been to Lincoln Park, no way would a 10K seat arena would fit there. The area isn't built for that.

i grew up there and can think of a few spots it could be plausible. It'd be a major challenge and the zoning would need to get approved in the shadiest way possible but nonetheless I can think of a few ways it could get done. Honestly they should've just done the United Center deal, not like students aren't familiar with the commute there I'm sure plenty of them go to Bulls and Blackhawks games.

[DemonLS]

Sorry but the United Center is WAY too big of a facility to host a college basketball game. It is massive. DePaul has played 5 or so games there over the years. They were quiet except for the games against Duke and Florida.

Yes, I loved Alumni Hall because I grew up watching games there as a child. But it was outdated. Fantastic home court advantage though.

As I always share, for this conference to be at its best, St. John's and DePaul need to elevate their programs. If they do, the media will take their 2 programs and this conference to bigger heights.

Chicago is the greatest sports town in this country.

[MUBoxer]

Sorry but the United Center is WAY too big of a facility to host a college basketball game. It is massive. DePaul has played 5 or so games there over the years. They were quiet except for the games against Duke and Florida.

Yes, I loved Alumni Hall because I grew up watching games there as a child. But it was outdated. Fantastic home court advantage though.

As I always share, for this conference to be at its best, St. John's and DePaul need to elevate their programs. If they do, the media will take their 2 programs and this conference to bigger heights.

Chicago is the greatest sports town in this country.

The UC isn't much bigger than the bradley center so that's not a great excuse but in my suggestion the upper bowl/standing room is closed.

I completely agree about SJU and depaul in terms of media marketas but also just support in general from the respective schools those two are considerably larger than any other big east school so those two waking up would be huge but of course I'm a traditionalist so I'm content with the three championship holders being the flagship teams.

[Freshjive2103]

DemonLS - you take shots at every program around, and act like DePaul is morally superior. How many different sayings can I throw out there that relate to this;

Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones
The pot calling the kettle black

If you think DePaul is harsh and quick with their suspensions, you then believe that Melvin and McKinney had only their 1st or maybe 2nd offenses. There is quite a lot of smoke within the DePaul program and if you want to be an ostrich with your head in the sand, so be it. But then don't poke your head out from out under the sand, make a claim and then bury your head in that sand again.

[Freshjive2103]

I can't feel too bad for DePaul. Over the past 30 years, between hiring Joey Meyer, tearing down Alumni Hall, turning down the Finkl Steel site in favor of getting into bed with Rahm to build a trojan horse for a casino in the city limits cough cough I mean shiny new stadium, retaining Purnell, not firing their joke of an athletic director, so many of their wounds are self-inflicted.

This is so dumb.

1. Joey Meyer made the Tournament in seven of his first eight years, and was National Coach of the Year in 1987. Hiring him was undoubtedly NOT a mistake. Perhaps you could argue that they kept him too long at the end out of respect for Coach Ray, but he was absolutely the right hire at the time.

2. I loved Alumni Hall. I spent more time there than any other building on campus when I was a student. But the place was a dump. Not even close to being a bad idea to replace it.

3. The Finkl Steel site was and is an environmental disaster. Whoever purchases the site is probably looking at $40 million just to clean it up on top of the expense of purchasing the property before a shovel even hits the ground. DePaul is looking at a $75 million investment at McCormick Place. They'd have been looking at an investment of more than $300 million at Finkl Steel. It would have put the financial stability of the entire University at risk.

I personally cannot claim to have been to Alumni Hall, but the issue here is not Alumni Hall itself, it's the land where Alumni Hall once stood. If I seem annoyed, it's because I've heard DePaul fans many times complain that the reason why they can't get recruits or win games is because students won't come to the games because they're all the way out in Rosemont, but DePaul is stuck because there's nowhere on campus with enough land to build an arena. Well, whose fault is that?

A hypothetical parallel is the Cubs. Imagine the Cubs tore down Wrigley Field, and moved their games to Sox Park. But then, imagine the Cubs redeveloped the land where Wrigley Field is now, to be exclusively condos. If the Cubs then whined that their attendance was suffering because of the move, and whined about there not being enough open land in Lakeview to build a major league baseball stadium closer to their fanbase, no one would feel sorry for them at all. Their problem is one of their own making.

If I recall correctly, the land where Alumni Hall once stood, that's where DePaul's Student Center now is. You can literally build a student center anywhere. It can be big, small, it can be multiple stories to have a small footprint in a dense neighborhood like Lincoln Park, but a basketball arena NEEDS a footprint big enough to put a basketball court and stands down. When DePaul tore down Alumni Hall, they should have announced they were building an 8-10k athletics facility on its site, and that DePaul would play at the United Center in the interim. Yes, they built McGrath, but not on the same site, and it's a much smaller gym shoehorned into a small piece of real estate.

Instead, they stuck it out in Rosemont waaaaay past its sell-by date, and for their new arena, have found one of the few places in the Chicago area that may even be MORE inconvenient than Rosemont, where students are STILL a half hour away from campus by public transit. There seems to have been very little vision in the move, and even less in how to return DePaul to Lincoln Park.

Yes - DePaul fans want an on-campus arena. You know why it would never happen?

City of Chicago Planners

Fullerton goes down to one lane each way just on the outskirts of the DePaul campus. Sheffield Ave (and most all other north/south streets) right on campus is the same. The traffic congestion would be insane.

Ideally, the city of Chicago would probably love to relocate Wrigley closer to major thoroughfares (I90/94). Wrigleyville is a little better than Lincoln Park for traffic (a few more 2 lane roads in each direction near by) but not much better.

[GoldenWarrior11]

DePaul could easily turn it around with the proper leadership in place. As long as Jean Lenti-Ponsetto is the university AD, and Oliver Purnell continues to act as Head Coach, the mens basketball program will continue to finish in last place in the Big East.

If DePaul opens their new arena with those two still in place, it will be a disaster. They need leadership to create a spark for the program that has not been felt in quite some time. It is mind-boggling to me that one of the largest catholic universities in the world cannot put a decent basketball program on the court.

[notkirkcameron]

DePaul could easily turn it around with the proper leadership in place. As long as Jean Lenti-Ponsetto is the university AD, and Oliver Purnell continues to act as Head Coach, the mens basketball program will continue to finish in last place in the Big East.

If DePaul opens their new arena with those two still in place, it will be a disaster. They need leadership to create a spark for the program that has not been felt in quite some time. It is mind-boggling to me that one of the largest catholic universities in the world cannot put a decent basketball program on the court.

DePaul is really good at "being in Chicago" and by that, I mean that DePaul was able to convince the Superconference Era Big East they belonged, despite not accomplishing anything of note in recent memory (1 NCAA Tournament win since 1990). As a result, they're experts at riding coattails of more successful programs, while nominally offering "the Chicago market" to television networks.

Since joining the Big East...
2014: 10th out of 10
2013: 15th out of 15
2012: 16th out of 16
2011: 16th out of 16
2010: 16th out of 16
2009: 16th out of 16
2008: 13th out of 16
2007: 8th out of 16
2006: 13th out of 16

If DePaul's campus was in Peoria, they'd have been kicked to the Horizon League long ago. If you replaced DePaul in the Big East with Loyola Chicago, I'm not certain anybody would notice, but at least then we'd have an on-campus stadium in the city.

[falcon]

DePaul and SJU are both run by the Vincentian Fathers, who are not very adept at operating a modern university. The problems are not confined to the athletic dept.

[NJRedman]

DePaul and SJU are both run by the Vincentian Fathers, who are not very adept at operating a modern university. The problems are not confined to the athletic dept.

Care to enlighten us about that? Whats wrong with our universities?

[Demon22]

DePaul is really good at "being in Chicago"...

This would probably really bother me if I thought you'd given more than 30 seconds worth of thought into the issues around DePaul men's basketball program.

But please, by all means, do go on about how stupid we are for not building a 10,000-seat arena on the corner of Belden and Sheffield. Or how they should have spent upwards of $100 million to buy the Finkl Steel site, another $40 million (...and two years worth of time) to resolve the environmental concerns, and then another $150 million to build the damn arena.

I mean, gee... I bet no one at DePaul has thought of any of these ideas. And they certainly haven't spent the last THIRTY FRIGGIN' YEARS looking for a Lincoln Park home for the Men's Basketball program, right?