DePaul Locker Room Problems?

[RedStormNation]

You have to look at programs in terms of their full resume. Every team has their cold years and competitive years. It's all a cycle. G'Town was just great recently in the top 10. Now they are struggling (but they are doing much better of late). SJ was #1 in 1985 in the nation and made the Final Four. For the better part of 2 decades we have been very mediocre if not bad. Then in 2011 Lavin came and we came out of nowhere to a top 15 ranking and a tourney berth beating top 10 teams. Then they graduated. College hoops is a game of cycles. Unless you are Duke, UNC, UK, Kansas, etc. where you can reload any year with the best players in the country very easily, your program is going to have hot and cold spells. But IMO you can't even compare a 9 berth team (SHU) and a 15 berth team that hasn't been to the tourney in a decade (PC), to a team with almost 30 berths, 2 Final Four's and an Elite 8 in addition to being the 7th program in the country in terms of most wins. We had HOF coaches and some of the bigger names in the past few decades go to the NBA to become stars i.e. Mullin, Jackson, Artest, etc. and now even Harkless is doing well in the NBA for the Magic. SJU is a much prouder program with much more success and history than the group of SHU, PC, DePaul. It appears we are finally ready to start a good cycle again. 2011 ranked and made tourney, 2012 all freshmen, 2013 on the bubble for the tourney until we suspended Harrison for the last 6 games in a CRUCIAL stretch and still made the NIT where we won a game as well, and now 2014 we finally have a good PG in Jordan, our players are hitting their stride and are currently right on the bubble for the tourney. We are also rumored to be favorites for two 5 star recruits for 2015.

The prestige is slowly coming back. Baby steps.

[NJRedman]

PC and SJU really are not all that comparable overall. PC has about 15 NCAA appearances. SJU has almost double at 28. The last time PC was nationally relevant was 1997 in the Elite 8. In that time SJ had good to great teams in 1999, 2003, 2011. SJ has been to 2 Final Four's and some Elite 8's. Also the #7 winningest program of all time. That's nationally. I know a lot of you will try to discount it because most of the success was in the past, but it still counts. I read something yesterday that shocked me...Seton Hall only has 9 (NINE!) tourney appearances. That is like a decent mid major program level. I honestly thought they had more like 15 like PC. The only reason I bring this up is because people tend to lump SJU in with PC and SHU and it's just not fair. It's not even close really. Overall SJU has had much more success over a much longer time. And this is not a shot at all to PC or SHU even though I'm sure someone will take it that way. Both are definitely programs back on the upswing for sure. They are both attracting good recruits and their fans should be excited.

I've never understood DePaul...they have damn good players...it's not a lack of talent. I feel like they have Mets syndrome...no matter how much talent they have there just seems to be a negative feeling around the program. I truly feel like some teams whether pro or college get so used to losing that they subconsciously lower their expectations and it messes with them psychologically.

I know in terms of program history they aren't similar but in terms of recent success they are pretty similar. And I was merely pointing out that with the coaching changes to SJU and PC suddenly huge recruits were coming in. Why not at Depaul? He was pointing out that rebuilding takes time but over night you two had some big recruits coming in.

Not to be nit picky but you guys didn't even crack the top 25 in 2003 so I'm not sure what nationally relevant is.

SJU won the NIT in 2003.

They aren't pretty similar in terms of recent success. DePaul has been a bottom feeder who wasn't even competitive. They went winless in conference play multiple times. Get the F out of here saying they were similar to SJU and PC.

SJU had big recruits coming in because Lavin is a great salesman and took Norm Roberts recruits and got them to finish 3rd in the deepest the BE has ever been (11 teams in the NCAA) and got them invited to the big dance. What can DePaul point to when talking to recruits?

[Demon22]

Yeah, SJU has been down for most of the decade, thats why it's called a down period. Jarvis flamed out and Roberts never got it going. Sure seems to me that Lavin has things turning around.

How is this possible? I've been told that after your school has a down period, a coach can't turn things around in four seasons or less.

You guys were a LOT farther down than SJU. We're talking perennial last place team, and not even close in 85% of your games. That come back takes time.

My senior year at DePaul, they were 3-23 a year after finishing 11-17. Three years after I graduated, they were playing Kansas in the 1st round of the NCAA Tounament.

Pat Kennedy was 21-37 in his last two years at DePaul. Two years after he left, Dave Leitao got us to the 2nd round of the NCAA Tounament.

I'm not saying that I need Oliver Purnell to get DePaul to the NCAA Tournament this year. I'm saying that I need to see progress. I need to see that things are moving in the right direction. You can point to Garrett and Hamilton all you want, but I've seen it before. Once upon a time, Dar Tucker and Mac Koshwal were supposed to lead the DePaul resurgence. Then they left, and it was Cleveland Melvin and Brandon Young's turn.

I was even kind of realistic. I thought if DePaul could finish with five or six conference wins and something approaching a .500 record, then that would be progress. Nope. We're destined for a 10-22 record in what was supposed to the year where we finally started to right the ship.

Enough. Oliver Purnell has failed miserably. He's had more than enough time to show any kind of progress, and he hasn't done it. If anything, we're worse today than we were two years ago. I can't watch it any more. There's no plan, there's no vision, there's no hope. We're a little more than two years away from moving into a new building. We've got to give the next guy a chance to enter that building with a little bit of momentum.

[BillikensWin]

Redman,

St. John's has a great history of basketball. Winning the NIT is a negative (because you have to play in the NIT).

And I know, you're going to ask how many Big East games SLU has won...

[MUBoxer]

You guys can't actually be trying to argue that winning the NIT is nationally relavent... I'll give you it's making the best of a bad situation that's why I'm ok with 1995 MU making the NIT finals. But no you're in the NIT and not because you were the second best team in a mid major conference but because you didn't do work in the regular season (yay beat Duke!) But come on guys for such a proud program you can't actually be trying to say that winning the NIT makes you nationally relavent that year. Heck more people care about the 64 (ish) teams that make the NCAA tournament than the NIT.

Whoever it was that said that Depaul is nowhere near you guys you might wanna know that Depaul has just as many final fours as you guys, has put in a tremendous amount of NBA players and all that plus they have only like 4 or 5 less NCAA tournament appearances on their resume. But I'll play your game when you asked what would the coach have to sell. I'd sell the fact that you get to play in one of America's greatest and most basketball centric cities. You get to have an opportunity to revive one of the historically top programs. You are in a state where your parents (if from around Chi) could easily drive to MKE, Chi, and Indy (maybe Cinci) to see you play every year. Is St John's bball > Depaul BBall overall? yes but not the way you guys are making it out to be.