We’ve entered a No Man’s Land on figuring out what’s going on with the Blue Demons
#7 Marquette Golden Eagles (14-2, 5-0 Big East) at DePaul Blue Demons (9-8, 0-6 Big East)
Date: Tuesday, January 14, 2025
Time: 6pm Central
Location: Wintrust Arena, Chicago, Illinois
Marquette Stats Leaders
Points: Kam Jones, 19.7 ppg
Rebounds: David Joplin, 5.6 rpg
Assists: Kam Jones, 6.4 apg
Marquette Injury Update: Junior guard Sean Jones will redshirt for the remainder of the season to continue his rehab/recovery from knee surgery.
DePaul Stats Leaders
Points: Jacob Meyer, 14.1 ppg
Rebounds: David Skogman, 5.9 rpg
Assists: Conor Enright, 6.6 apg
KenPom.com Rankings
Marquette: #11
DePaul: #127
Game Projection: Marquette has an 87% chance of victory, with a predicted score of 80-68.
The Stakes: Marquette is attempting to remain the last unbeaten team in Big East play in the 2024-25 season. DePaul is attempting to beat a Big East team for the first time since March 8, 2023. That was a conference tournament game, and so they are trying for their first regular season win over a league foe since January 18, 2023. If DePaul fails here and on Friday at Georgetown, they will have gone two full calendar years without a regular season Big East victory.
This Season So Far: DePaul started out the year with seven consecutive victories, all against teams that are now #168 or lower in the NET. They almost did not do that, as they needed a three-pointer at the horn from Jacob Meyer to force overtime in their opener against now-#324 Southern Indiana, as in DePaul needed the bucket to not lose in regulation. After seven wins of making everyone say “okay, new head coach Chris Holtmann has his brand new roster that’s never played together at all or for DePaul before at all moving in something resembling a positive direction,” they lost by 14 on the road against Texas Tech in the Big East/Big 12 Battle. Okay, first contact with a high major, clearly capable opponent, no big deal.
And then they blew a 56-48 lead at home against Providence in their Big East opener and lost to Providence. Feel free hit the alarm bells. After beating a Wichita State team that turned around and lost at home to Kansas City and has started AAC play 0-3, the Blue Demons got shelled by 28 at St. John’s and then by 20 up the road at Northwestern.
DePaul closed 2024 with a home win over Loyola Maryland, but haven’t won again. 13 point home loss to Connecticut. 44 point road loss to Villanova. Blew an 11 point road lead against Seton Hall with four minutes left and lost by five in overtime. Gave up a 28-3 run bridging halftime to Xavier on Saturday, lost by 14.
DePaul started the year at #163 in KenPom.com’s rankings, got as high as #88, and have fallen back to #127. Started out in the NET at #63 when it debuted on December 1st, moved up to #56, now currently #133. Started the year at #117 on BartTorvik.com, peaked at #78, now down to #120.
Tempo Free Fun: A year ago, I refused to even pretend to preview DePaul for either of their two games against Marquette. But that DePaul team was 3-15 overall and 0-7 coming into the first game against the Golden Eagles, and way down at #279 in the KenPom.com rankings at the time. They were clearly not worth the time and effort, as that version of the Blue Demons — who fired head coach Tony Stubblefield right before playing Marquette, by the way — was more akin to a buy game opponent than they were to a Big East caliber opponent.
This year’s DePaul squad is ticketed for the bottom of the Big East as well after losing to Seton Hall, but they appear to merely be run of the mill high major bad. After all, they’re still better than five teams in the ACC in terms of the KenPom rankings, and even though they took a loss to the Pirates, DePaul’s actually in front of Seton Hall in total efficiency margin ranking by more than 25 spots.
And so I’m actually going to wave my hand in the direction of previewing this game and this team. I’m not going to go crazy in depth here because this is a game that Marquette needs to win no matter how it happens. But there are some things about the Blue Demons that we have to point out.
For example, while on that seven game winning streak to start the season, DePaul was playing like the #48 team in the country according to BartTorvik.com’s data filtering. They did this largely because of a top 50 offense, and that was largely because the Blue Demons were shooting over 41% from behind the three-point line and limiting their overmatched-on-paper opponents to just 27.6% three-point shooting.
Since then, DePaul has played like the #207 team in the country, ranking somewhere below #180 in both offensive and defensive efficiency. Part of the reason why is — you guessed it — the three-point shooting thing has completely flipped over on the Blue Demons. They’re connecting on just 34.3% of their own long range tries over the past 10 games, and their opponents are hitting — get this — over 43% of their attempts.
In only their six Big East games, DePaul is shooting 31.6% from distance, and opponents are connecting 45.5% of the time.
It is at this moment I would like to remind you of two things about this game on Tuesday, maybe three, depending on how you like to count.
- The game is at Wintrust Arena in Chicago.
- In his two games (is this two things or just one thing?) where he played more than five minutes against the Blue Demons at Wintrust Arena, Marquette forward David Joplin is shooting 14-for-19 from behind the three-point line. 8-for-11 in 2023, 6-for-8 in 2024. 73.7%.
Please adjust your expectations as necessary.
Stat Watch: David Joplin needs two points to pass Chris Crawford for 46th place on the all time scoring list. He needs three points to pass Scott Merritt and Jae Crowder for 44th place.
Marquette Last 10 Games: 8-2 and riding a five game winning streak.
DePaul Last 10 Games: 2-8 and riding a four game losing streak.
All-Time Series: Marquette leads, 85-50.
Current Streak: Marquette has won four straight and six of the last seven. DePaul’s most recent victory in the series was MU’s visit to Wintrust during Shaka Smart’s first season in charge.
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