DePaul's Dual Personalities

It must have been a strange week to be a DePaul Blue Demon fan.

The week started out quite well for the boys from Chicago. They visited #16 Wake Forest and left with an 84-81 upset victory. True, they caught the Demon Deacons at a good time. This was Wake's first game after exams, always a tough game for a team to get ready for. DePaul also benefitted from a bad game by Wake Forest's leading scorer, Justin Gray, who made only 3 of 11 shots and scored 12 points. Still, though, a road win against a ranked team was a big statement from Coach Jerry Wainwright's program.

Looking to build on that momentum, DePaul traveled to Norfok, Virginia to take on the Old Dominion Monarchs. They would have been better off if the bus driver had not found the arena.

Old Dominion, leading by only four points three minutes into the second half, kicked things into another gear and handed DePaul an 87-43 loss, the worst in school history.

The second half was mind-blowingly one-sided. The Monarchs shot 66.7% from the field while DePaul made only 21.4% of their shots. The Blue Demons shooting percentage for the game was 21.4%, which makes their missing percentage 78.6%-very impressive. That was also the worst shooting effort ever by an Old Dominion opponent making it a day of records.

For the Monarchs, this was an important bounce back game for them following a 61-42 loss at Drexel where they went scoreless for 13:09 in the first half and trailed 31-10 at the break, setting a school record for fewest points in a half.

Coaches hate having their teams' character tested in December, but it happens. Old Dominion aced its test, and we'll see how DePaul handes this humiliating loss when they travel to Oakland to face Cal in the Pete Newell Challenge.