DePaul women’s basketball back on a winning streak, Holtmann and men’s team can’t pull road victory, both teams play UConn tonight
Plus, The DePaulia's players of the week & who the Blue Demon's take on next
“Courtside Countdown” is a weekly DePaul basketball newsletter by DePaulia sports editor Ryan Hinske and asst. sports editor Peyton Hopp. It is jam-packed with rundowns on how the men’s and women’s basketball teams fared this week. Each week we recap games, players of the week, statistics and next week’s schedule.
How the women’s team did this week
On Wednesday, Jan. 22, the DePaul Blue Demons won against the Xavier Musketeers 57-50. Kate Clarke, who started this game, is back into the swing of things after sitting out all season with a knee fracture. She was the highest scorer with 15 points; she made 42.85% of her field goals.
DePaul’s game against Butler on Sunday, Jan. 26, was a clutch game. They won 74-67, with Jorie Allen scoring 34 points. Butler was ahead at halftime by one point and got the lead to 10 points early in the second half. DePaul slowly closed that gap and the game went into overtime, the first time this season the Blue Demons have gone to overtime. DePaul secured their 13th win and have a perfect all-time 13-0 record at the Hinkle Fieldhouse.
The Blue Demons are currently 6-3 in the Big East conference and they are in fourth place.
Player of the week: Jorie Allen (special mention: Kate Clarke)
Allen helped on every part of the court against Xavier. — she scored 13 points, seven assists, six rebounds and four steals.
Allen played all 45 minutes against Butler and she finished the game with seven rebounds, five assists and 34 points, which is her season high. Her recent season high was 27 points against UIC on Dec. 13.
Clarke has made all but one of DePaul’s 3-pointers in the past two games — she has made six.
By the numbers
Against Xavier
The Blue Demons bench only scored five points. This is the fourth time this season where the bench has scored five points or less.
DePaul scored 57 points; this is the sixth time this season where they have scored 60 points or less.
Against Butler
Free throws were very important for DePaul to come back in the second half — they made 14 free throws and 10 of them were made by Jorie Allen.
DePaul only made three 3-pointers (3-of-13) and they were all made by Clarke.
This week, DePaul has two home games against powerhouse UConn (10-0) on Jan. 29 at 6 p.m. and Seton Hall (6-2) on Feb. 1 at 2 p.m.
How the men’s team did this week
In DePaul men’s basketball’s sole game this week, they lost a road game to the Butler Bulldogs, 69-86, on Saturday. It was DePaul head coach Chris Holtmann’s first game against his former team. He coached the Bulldogs from 2014 to 2017.
The Blue Demons were down two points with 52 seconds left in the first half before giving up a 5-0 run to end the half down seven. That momentum continued in Butler’s favor coming back from halftime, as the Bulldogs scored 46 points in the second half to ultimately win by 17.
Player of the week: NJ Benson
Benson got his seventh start of the season against Butler and dropped 20 points on 10-of-15 shooting, to go along with nine rebounds.
Benson has stepped up in a big way since 6-foot-11-inch forward David Skogman got injured against Northwestern in December.
A junior from Mount Vernon, Ill., Benson transferred from Missouri St. last summer.
By the numbers
DePaul is 1-9 in conference play. Three of their nine losses have been in overtime; the other six have been double digit losses.
Though the team has struggled defensively in Big East play, they have shot 50% or more from the field in three of their last four games.
DePaul is last in the conference in opponent 3-point percentage (40.7%). Though they are 14th of the 364 DI basketball teams in percentage of points from 3-point range, they are fourth in conference play behind Marquette, Villanova and Creighton.
Blue Demon forward CJ Gunn is 30th among all DI players in percentage of shots taken. When Gunn is on the court, he takes 32.7% of DePaul’s shots.
While the women’s team hosts UConn tonight, the men’s team will play UConn (6-3) in Hartford at 7 p.m. central before returning home to host Seton Hall (1-8) on Sunday. In DePaul’s last matchup against the Pirates, they narrowly lost in overtime. That game remains Seton Hall’s lone victory in conference play. Tipoff is set for 5 p.m. at Wintrust Arena.
Thank you for reading and don’t forget to subscribe.
Ryan Hinske & Peyton Hopp are the editors of Courtside Countdown.
Reporting contributed by Nathan Klepp.
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Subject verb agreement DePaul equals its—blue Demons equals their.