Dave Leitao

[MUBoxer]

When DePaul fired Oliver Purnell, they hired a search firm for hiring their next head coach. That search firm pointed them to both Bobby Hurley and Scott Drew, both of whom wanted nothing to do with the restrictions put on them in retaining Billy Garrett Sr. as a coach. Instead, they went to a former head coach that left them for a better job, and that hasn't been a head coach at the D1 level in six years. What led them to the hire was the fact that two former players emailed JLP and said he was a good coach while there, he had "Big East experience" as an assistant under Jim Calhoun close to 15 years ago, and "defeated the likes of Tom Crean, John Calipari, Rick Pitino and Bob Huggins while in Conference-USA."

Why hire a younger, energetic young coach? In JLP's eyes, youth and innovation is overrated. "To me it was about the energy of the coach — all four guys in the Final Four are over 60,'' Lenti Ponsetto said. "(And) Coach Ray at 70 had more energy than players." Yes, JLP just compared DePaul to the likes of Michigan State, Kentucky, Duke and Wisconsin.

This is actually a good point. She ignored that all of those guys were young hungry coaches when they started (and that includes Ray Meyer) Izzo was 40 when he started at MSU, about 28 when started as an assistant there, Ryan was 51, so it's fair to say he wasn't young and hungry but he had proven to be just about the best D3 coach in the country already not just a few nit and ncaa births years apart. Coach K was in his early 30s starting at Duke and Calipari is a known cheater already but is not over 60 (great research JLP) and was 49 when he started at Kentucky, still somewhat young, with an unbelievable resume whether he cheated or not.

[NovaBall]

Ten games into the season and the kids have quit on him.
Bo Ryan just retired. Why can't Leitao quit too??

[billyjack]

The team is just not good.

Amazingly, their numbers have improved from last year. Like it was said last week, rebounding is better and FG% defense is better. But turnovers and general softness lead to bad basketball.

I'm guilty of looking at Garrett and Hamilton and assuming this decent high-low pair is good enough to win.

But...
- Garrett is exhausted and has been sick.
- Hamilton doesn't assert himself enough, hasn't touched a weight in 3 years, is weak on both ends, and hasn't responded to being benched. Hamilton has a habit of forcing shots down low while being double-teamed.
- Stimage can't stay out of foul trouble and is gimpy, and provides little offense.
- Henry may be the weakest defender in the conference, except...
- Simpson might be worse on D.
- Ryscksboch shouldn't be playing so many minutes, except Stimage can't stay on the floor and Hamilton is soft.
- Wood is a turnover machine.

The only point of hope going forward is Cain, a freshman, who looks talented. He understandably makes freshman mistakes, but they're forgivable.

Gazi is the other freshman who plays, a decent ballhandler who absolutely cannot shoot.

The team is a mess right now. Purnell left a weak roster. This reminds me of Cooley's first year at PC. They just have no horses. At a minimum, they have to go on a weightlifting program. Purnell couldn't coach and couldn't recruit and couldn't win, so his gameplan was just to have Forrest Robinson jack up threes, pray they went in, and try to hold the lead.

The jury is still out on Leitao. He needed a softer schedule to rack up some wins. Instead he has to play midrange teams like Stanford or upcoming Northwestern or an upcoming great George Washington team.

[OmahaGuy]

Growing pains are inevitable when under a new coach (at least in most cases). DePaul has got two more tough non-con games vs Northwestern and vs George Washington. If they can win at least 1 of them, I'll be happy.

[DemonLS]

Can we stop talking about other coaches for DePaul? Hurley did NOT want the job...period.

This team has minimal talent at best. Rip the hell out of GTown who has a ton more talent than DePaul.

This OOC schedule is loaded with solid teams and not doing DePaul any favors. DePaul will lose the next 2 games against Northwestern and George Washington so save your comments.

[GoldenWarrior11]

Hurley actually did want the job. He didn't want Garrett Sr. to remain on staff. JLP told candidates that they needed to keep him if they wanted the job.

[NovaBall]

Northwestern is now a team we should be fine with losing to?

Why didn't Hurley want the job! Billy Garrett? But I though he son sucked, according to the Leitao apologists?

[MUBoxer]

Northwestern is now a team we should be fine with losing to?

Why didn't Hurley want the job! Billy Garrett? But I though he son sucked, according to the Leitao apologists?

Now I'm not an Leitao apologist, despite thinking you're irrationally harsh on someone in his first year of a dumpster fire program. But who wouldn't have expected Billy Garrett Jr to be good after being the rookie of the year his freshman year and honorable mention last year? He's been tremendously disappointing this year, but come on man don't act like Depaul has some sort of foresight that they could've expected that. Plus you've completely ignored previous points about how Chicago Public Schools would've reacted to the firing of a former CPS coach.

[SJHooper]

True, most new coaches take their lumps early, but you can see signs of improvement and signs of potential early on. Look at us with Mullin. Immediately the local HS coaches raved about how much harder we were recruiting, how much more effort was involved, etc. Immediately we saw improvement in players that were glorified walk-on's under Lavin i.e. Amar, Jones, and overall shooting skills. They went from essentially walk-on type players on the bench to giving meaningful contributions. We came back from a ton to take down Rutgers (still a B1G team as bad as they are) and we just easily beat Cuse who was just ranked 19th shortly before we faced them. This is with tons of freshmen and some previously bad players from Lavin's reign.

My point is that, yes coaches need time, but you can still see immediate improvement if you look close enough. Though SJ will finish anywhere from 7-10 this year, at least we are showing signs of life and potential. We are already upsetting teams like Cuse and we just started rebuilding. The hype is there, the improvement in players from Lavin is noticeable, and the first major win is already in the books. There is just zero hope for DePaul. It's like they enjoy losing. If you want to go in a new direction and start a fresh new culture, you don't hire people from the same stale losing culture we all are used to with DePaul. But as they say, DePaul gon' DePaul.

[DemonLS]

GoldenWarrior,

Per a member in the Athletic Office at DePaul....is that DePaul firmly believes Hurley did NOT want the job. And that the BGSr. issue is being way overblown. If the money was there and Hurly had to have BGSr. on his staff for 2 years but could bring in all the other assistants, then why would he not take the job!!!!!!