Pat Kennedy, the DePaul coach, watched it all from his living room, where he was confined by a bulging disc in his back. His Blue Demons might as well have been there with him.
Instead they spent their Saturday afternoon in Louisville’s Freedom Hall, where they at least appeared for their scheduled game with the Cardinals. But they did little more than get their bodies onto the court and were thoroughly embarrassed while floundering their way to a 97-67 loss.
DePaul was simply humiliated, and it didn’t happen as the result of an exceptional performance by Louisville. The Cardinals (12-6, 3-4 Conference USA), who came in with a three-game losing streak, committed 21 turnovers, allowed DePaul 24 offensive rebounds and shot a modest 44.9 percent.
But the Blue Demons (8-10, 1-6) sabotaged themselves with countless errors of omission and commission. They missed open threes and gave up open threes. They missed open midrange jumpers and gave up open midrange jumpers. They even missed dunks and layups and–not surprisingly, given their porous interior defense–gave up dunks and layups.
“We missed two layups early, and that set the tone for the game,” said DePaul associate head coach Tracy Dildy, who filled in for Kennedy.
“When you miss open shots, that’s when you get frustrated,” senior guard Rashon Burno said. “We just didn’t respond well.”
They didn’t respond well to Louisville’s press, which confronted them from the start, and they didn’t respond well after Andre Brown (team-high 18 points) and Drake Diener missed layups in the first 50 seconds. They made only one of their first 11 shots and were down a dozen with just over four minutes gone.
They made only three of their first 22 shots (13.6 percent) and were down 19 with just under 11 minutes gone. They made only eight of their 37 first-half shots (21.6 percent) and were down 25 at halftime.
“A team like Louisville that presses, you’ve got to make them pay,” Burno said. “When you don’t make them pay, you shoot yourself in the foot.”
Confronted by the Cardinals’ unrelenting pressure, they would have missed if they had been aiming at their sneakers.
The Blue Demons shot 25-for-78 overall (32.1 percent). They missed 19 straight three-point attempts before Imari Sawyer (seven points, 3-of-12 from the field) made their only one with just seven seconds remaining.
“Sometimes we press from the beginning and sometimes not. Today we decided to press early to set the tempo,” said Louisville coach Rick Pitino. He also minimized spending the previous 36 hours in the hospital undergoing tests, saying, “It’s not a big deal.”
Said Dildy: “They’re going to make you play at a different pace. They invite you to play quick, to take quick shots. We got caught up a little bit in that, but for the most part we ran our offense and just missed shots.”
Burno summed up the Demons’ disappointment: “Our confidence was up after a [22-point win at East Carolina]. We felt it was the start of something. Now it’s back to the drawing board.”
