Welcome to The Holy Land of Hoops

Best show on television. Last week's episode what that amazing feature on Kris dunn.

This week.

- gtown segment. Look, we all understand how important they are to the league. Their fan base is becoming more and more apathetic, and their national brand is dwindling. But there is hope, this is a young team. This season is shot, but they have good players. What upset my was their big guy saying that he was upset they were only picked #2 and they had to prove everyone they were wrong. Ummm, maybe gtown should try to prove they are better than #7. Ugh.

- marquette segment. Man I hope they make the dance. Ellenson seems like a great kid, committed to the team, but we all know it is a one yr thing. The program got left high and dry by that clown buzzy and this kid came riding in on his golden horse and will get them back in the dance. I love that his brother is on the team too. That's how you build continuity and core fundamentals. Not that you need siblings, but stability in general. Rooting hard for this kid.

- I wanted to puke when Dave Leitao said that he ditched depaul the first time around because he was taught you can only win in college basketball at big state schools. But now that he got fired for doing poorly at a state school he is back to finish the job he abandoned a decade ago. What was depaul thinking?!?! Feel so bad for those kids playing for this guy. (I know, we are supposed to bury our heads in the sand about this disatser, but this was worthy of comment)

Thought the same exact thing when I heard Leitao's comment. Why would you ever say that, even if you thought it was true? And if you did think it was true, what makes you think you can win at a private school (the same one you already left) when you already failed at a big state school? Everyone (including those on the show) thinks that the new arena is going to magically change the culture and recruiting at DePaul but clearly that won't do it alone. Real embarrassing that a school in a basketball rich city like Chicago has been in the basement this long. Not news to anyone, but if schools in Nebraska, Rhode Island and Ohio can compete on a national level there's no excuse for one in Chicago.

Andviginia had had not won a tournament game in a decade when he decided he could never win at depaul, with only two appearances in that ten yr stretch. Not like he went to take over for gary Williams a few years after Dixon and Wilcox were playing at maryland.

What, the ACC turns out champions left and right? You have Duke, unc, and maryland had that nice run. Why would going to a bottom level team in a notoriously top heavy cinference be the path to a championship as opposed to trying to win with a huge school with great tradition in Chicago where you had already established a winning culture that was about to head to the best cinference in the nation.

I know, I know, bury the head in the sand.......... Ugh

NovaBall wrote:Best show on television. Last week's episode what that amazing feature on Kris dunn.



- I wanted to puke when Dave Leitao said that he ditched depaul the first time around because he was taught you can only win in college basketball at big state schools. But now that he got fired for doing poorly at a state school he is back to finish the job he abandoned a decade ago. What was depaul thinking?!?! Feel so bad for those kids playing for this guy. (I know, we are supposed to bury our heads in the sand about this disatser, but this was worthy of comment)

Did he ever take a second to realize that Duke is a private school? I mean. I know its damn hard to be a Duke but the more I think about this the more it makes him an idiot.

Also, why would you say such stupidity out loud? Gotta think before you speak on a Mic. It sounds freaking terrible

At the time he lett wake forest was probably the 4th best team in the acc, behind Duke and unc and Maryland. Yet he went to a cellar dweller acc school because it was a state school.

And dpeaul isn't really a typical private school. It has more of a state school feel due to its size and regional nature of the student body. It's not the country club private school with the smaller student body from many places beyond the local region. And depaul had every bit as good a history as Virginia.

I also don't think he ever admitted it was a mistake. He fell back on his belief that you couldn't win at depaul, but then he got fired from Virginia, so now he's back. Was real gutless.

Guy is the worst.

Sorry, need to bury my head in the sand...... DemonLS needs to blame the kids for sucking agin....



Ugh!!!! Whyyyyy!!!!

Nova,

I seriously have to wake up to this on a Monday morning?

First of all, the DePaul's players do not suck and I never said that Leitao was the greatest coach on earth. Our players are just not as good as the other teams in the conference. We DePaul fans know that we do not have the horses to compete and that is an unanimous feeling throughout. If you would like to know what each of our 12 players good points and bad points of each player, I will share.

I posted this on a DePaul fan site the other day:

Let do this.
Let DL attempt to go out on the recruiting trail and land some better players. If he cannot do this in a year or 2 max, then we need to move on. If he lands some better players and still has similar results in the next 2 years due to lack of coaching, the we need to move on.

We need 4 star type players and we need them NOW. Period. Even if we have not won in the last 20 years.

If this cannot be accomplished, then after all these down years.....the only solution is to hire a John Calipari type to fix the problem instantly. Otherwise, this program will never recover.

For what it is worth, one DePaul poster shared this recently.

DemonLS wrote:Nova,

I seriously have to wake up to this on a Monday morning?

First of all, the DePaul's players do not suck and I never said that Leitao was the greatest coach on earth. Our players are just not as good as the other teams in the conference. We DePaul fans know that we do not have the horses to compete and that is an unanimous feeling throughout. If you would like to know what each of our 12 players good points and bad points of each player, I will share.

I posted this on a DePaul fan site the other day:

Let do this.
Let DL attempt to go out on the recruiting trail and land some better players. If he cannot do this in a year or 2 max, then we need to move on. If he lands some better players and still has similar results in the next 2 years due to lack of coaching, the we need to move on.

We need 4 star type players and we need them NOW. Period. Even if we have not won in the last 20 years.

If this cannot be accomplished, then after all these down years.....the only solution is to hire a John Calipari type to fix the problem instantly. Otherwise, this program will never recover.

For what it is worth, one DePaul poster shared this recently.

DePaul recruiting.jpg

With all due respect demon, not too long ago I made a comment disparaging depaul's recruiting saying that only two of them could play at any program in the country (based on high school ranking) you shot back a lot of figures to contradict that. Doesn't you posting that image contradict your contradiction?

To Novaball, a team has 22NCAA appearances 16NIT appearances, and is coming off of an ncaa appearance do you take them instead of DePaul?

MUBoxer wrote:

DemonLS wrote:Nova,

I seriously have to wake up to this on a Monday morning?

First of all, the DePaul's players do not suck and I never said that Leitao was the greatest coach on earth. Our players are just not as good as the other teams in the conference. We DePaul fans know that we do not have the horses to compete and that is an unanimous feeling throughout. If you would like to know what each of our 12 players good points and bad points of each player, I will share.

I posted this on a DePaul fan site the other day:

Let do this.
Let DL attempt to go out on the recruiting trail and land some better players. If he cannot do this in a year or 2 max, then we need to move on. If he lands some better players and still has similar results in the next 2 years due to lack of coaching, the we need to move on.

We need 4 star type players and we need them NOW. Period. Even if we have not won in the last 20 years.

If this cannot be accomplished, then after all these down years.....the only solution is to hire a John Calipari type to fix the problem instantly. Otherwise, this program will never recover.

For what it is worth, one DePaul poster shared this recently.

DePaul recruiting.jpg

With all due respect demon, not too long ago I made a comment disparaging depaul's recruiting saying that only two of them could play at any program in the country (based on high school ranking) you shot back a lot of figures to contradict that. Doesn't you posting that image contradict your contradiction?

To Novaball, a team has 22NCAA appearances 16NIT appearances, and is coming off of an ncaa appearance do you take them instead of DePaul?

I'm convinced NovaBall would take University of Phoenix over DePaul

MUBoxer wrote:To Novaball, a team has 22NCAA appearances 16NIT appearances, and is coming off of an ncaa appearance do you take them instead of DePaul?

I would like to know a little more, such as location, institutional profile, recent NCAA success, etc.... So tough to answer that.

But my general answer is that I like DePaul in the conference and it is frustrating to see them so bad. I would rather DePaul get good than replace them with another school.



DemonLS talks about how Leitao needs to step up recruiting. My question is how does he plan to do that? By going on Inside the Big East and saying that you can only win big at state schools? Why would a kid opt for DePaul over Illinois or Wisconsin or Michigan if Dave Leitao himself thinks that you can only win at state schools?

That's what I don't understand about this hire. The guy clearly isn't committed to winning at DePaul, he clearly does not think DePaul is the type of job one can succeed at. Last time around he left DePaul to go to a lower level state school. Would be similar to Chris Holtman leaving Butler this year to go to Penn State or Nebraska or Washington State. And then when he gets fired he comes back and is welcomed with open arms, and that's the excuse he gives for leaving?


Look, I'm not going to have a back and forth with DemonLS, as I respect the moderators' request that this doesn't turn into a DePaul bashing site. We all want DePaul to do well. This was a very frustrating interview on this week's Inside the Big East, so I brought it up. I fully understand that DePaul is not going to fire Leitao anytime soon, for a variety of reasons. It's just disappointing to see a school with so much potential put such a poor effort into their program while others are working their tails off to be good.

Maybe I should start rooting for U of Phoenix?