Leitao, DePaul finally get their season started
Fewcollege basketball teams have endured as much brutally tough luck this season as DePaul.
The Blue Demons had their first nine games either postponed or canceled for COVID-19 related reasons. One game was called off about an hour before the scheduled tipoff.
They finally played their season opener on Wednesday, 25 days after it was supposed to happen, and beat Western Illinois 91-72.
"We've been through a lot," coach Dave Leitao said earlier this week during a Zoom session.
That's an understatement.
DePaul wasn't the last college basketball team to play its opener. Siena, which is still on pause, is scheduled to begin its season on Jan. 3.
It's been an excruciatingly long wait. "Obviously with all that's gone on in the world of college basketball and the world of our pandemic, it has put us especially in a different situation and a challenging situation, to say the least," Leitao said.
Leitao, who spent 14 seasons as an assistant on Jim Calhoun's staff at UConn, is in his second stint as head coach at DePaul. He rejoined the program in 2015.
Nothing could prepare the veteran coach for what's transpired this season. There's no manual to turn to for direction.
The Blue Demons have limited practice time over the last month or so while dealing with multiple pauses.
Of their roughly 35 practices (as of Tuesday), Leitao estimated that he's basically had his entire team about a half dozen times due to illness, injuries and COVID issues.
The Blue Demons still have players out. "It's not an excuse, it's where we're at," Leitao said. "We're going to use it hopefully as motivation to be better."
Through all the adversity and disappointment, the Blue Demons have remained committed to playing this season.
DePaul athletic director DeWayne Peevy said there was never any conversation about cancelling the season. He still hopes the Blue Demons play 25 games.
"It never came into play because we were dealing with very isolated issues that happened to have the worst timing possible," Peevy said. "There's no high risk and there's no safety issues. We're doing the same exact protocols for men's and women's basketball."
Leitao has had some ongoing concerns about his team.
At the top of his list is the mental health of his players.
"They're creatures of habit and that has been interrupted," Leitao said." They work off of planning for the future and goal setting, and that has been interrupted. Once we got into the fall, the interruptions and the self-isolation and all those things that go with multiple quarantines has really got me concerned."
DePaul is at a serious disadvantage as it enters league play, starting off by visiting
Providence Sunday and UConn on Wednesday. The Blue Demons also were scheduled to host UConn on Dec. 23 but the Huskies postponed the game on the advice of the Connecticut Department of Public Health.
Other Big East teams have played as many as 10 games overall prior to Wednesday's action. Eight teams had at least seven games while UConn and Butler had four apiece. DePaul already has five league games to make up.
Leitao expects his team to get off to a bumpy start. He'll be patient, understanding and remain positive as his team goes through the start-up process.
His advice to his players: Take care of today because you don't know what tomorrow will bring.
He knows opponents won't take it easy on DePaul because of its hardship.
"When you walk onto the court, no one is going to care whether you practice five times or had 55 practices," Leitao said. "They just want to know, are you ready? And that's the bell that we have to answer to, is the readiness of competition which will force us to either play as well as we can or not."
What matters the most is DePaul is finally playing games.
The Blue Demons know there will likely be more bumps in the road ahead.
Leitao will keep delivering the same message to this team.
"I tell the guys every day, 'What doesn't break you, makes you stronger.' I believe if you have self-belief in your preparation and you have a spiritual foundation, then you are taught to move forward. That's what competitors do.
"That's been my message all along as we've been through this start to finish, starting on March 12 when we had to leave New York City. We've got to be able to maintain. If we call ourselves competitors and if you are of any substance, then you're going to have to endure hardships. And this is a hardship that nobody factored in and that we're going to have to monitor and manage and do the best we can do to present ourselves in a way that is both competitive and successful."
Early impressions
Early signs indicate that it will be another fiercely competitive Big East season.
On Sunday, three of the four league games were decided by three points or less, including two that went to overtime.
A.J. Reeves drained a 3-pointer with 3.1 seconds left in the extra session to lift Providence past Seton Hall, 80-77. In its return to the Big East, UConn battled then-No. 9 Creighton before falling 76-74 in overtime.
The difference between residing in the upper half of the conference and the bottom half is winning tough games.
Creighton coach Greg McDermott says his team got lucky at the end of Sunday's game.
The Bluejays ended up going 2-0 on their road trip.
"There's not going to be any easy games," McDermott said. "You better get excited for any win you can get because it is a grind-it-out league. It was that before and now you add a program with the history and tradition of UConn.
“Coach (Dan) Hurley does an unbelievable job of preparing his team and getting them to compete at a high level.
“It's obvious that they take on his personality and that's a sign of a really well-coached team.
"Throughout the league, there's nothing that's going to be easy. People are going to have to figure out a way to get through these disruptions."
Prior to Sunday's game, Hurley gave his early impressions of the Big East.
"You watch these games, you see how hard it is to win a game in a league that's maybe the best conference in the country or the top 2 or 3 at worst," he said. "There's not a win that we would get — hopefully we'll get some this year — that you ever have to apologize for."
Georgetown recruiting victories
Former Big East great and current Georgetown coach Patrick Ewing is having some much-needed recruiting success at his alma mater.
Georgetown received its first commitment from a five-star recruit since 2014 when 6-foot-5 guard Aminu Mohammed announced his plan to play for the Hoyas on Monday. Mohammed, who's from Washington, D.C., is the No 3 ranked shooting guard in his class, according to ESPN.
Mohammed is one of five players in Georgetown's 2021 recruiting class, which is ranked in the top 10 nationally. Another commit is Ryan Mutombo, the son of former Hoya great Dikembe Mutombo.
Ewing, who was hired in 2017, is rebuilding a Georgetown program that hasn't had a winning Big East season since 2014-15. The Hoyas, who were picked last in the league coaches' preseason poll, are off to a 3-5 overall and 1-3 Big East start.
Quote of the Week
Here's what sophomore James Bouknight said when asked after Sunday's loss to Creighton about the culture changing at UConn.
"First off, it's not easy. When we practice, I don't think there's a team in the country that practices the way we practice in terms of intensity. ...
Not babying anyone. Not giving you a pat on the back. Telling you all the stuff that you don't want to hear. That's what it takes to come out and perform the way we did today after not playing for 17 days, to be back in the NCAA tournament, to play a Final Four game as a sophomore.
"Doing all the little things and the hard stuff that people don't want to do in a practice."
News and notes
The Big East is well-represented on the list of eligible candidates for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2021. League commissioner Val Ackerman is a first-time nominee while Villanova coach Jay Wright and former UConn standouts Richard Hamilton and Swin Cash also made the cut. ... Three Big East teams are ranked in this week's Associated Press Top 25 poll. Villanova is fifth, Creighton 13th and Xavier 22nd. ... Upcoming game to watch: Seton Hall at Xavier on Wednesday. Musketeers are off to an 8-1 start overall. Pirates won five of their last six. ... Individual leaders (as of Dec. 22): Scoring, Bouknight, 24.0 points; Rebounding, Georgetown's Jamorko Pickett, 9.3; Assists, Xavier's Paul Scruggs, 7.0; Blocks, UConn's Isaiah Whaley, 3.0. ... Butler had its 59-game home winning streak against non-conference foes on Monday with a 76-73 loss to Southern Illinois.