This was it, finally, the product of all the pleading and screaming and begging that Dave Leitao had been doing. Ever since he took over at DePaul last spring, he had preached the Blue Demons must learn to play harder, must learn to play at a fevered pitch they never had imagined before.
On occasion, they had done just that. But not until here, on this Wednesday night at the Allstate Arena, did they open a game afire and then refuse to fall even when their knees were buckled and they appeared on their way to a knockout loss. They instead stared down adversity and emerged from a hothouse of an affair with a stunning 56-52 victory over Cincinnati.
“I’m proud not only of the win, but how we rose to the challenge,” Leitao later said, trying to capture that essence. “The way everybody has to beat Cincinnati is to match their toughness. I think we did that and then we didn’t wilt when they made their run at us.”
“We were disappointed in ourselves the last time [we played Cincinnati],” Depaul center Sam Hoskins said. “We didn’t come out fighting. This time we went punch for punch with them.”
