There are not a lot of ways to couch this game as a positive. This one is to avoid finishing dead last in the Big East. Make no mistake, the bottom four of the conference will feature DePaul and Xavier in some positions. There may be a smattering of Marquette, Butler, Providence, or Georgetown in there as well, but those two teams will down amongst the worst. That’s just how it is this season.
But, amongst the worst and the actual worst are two different things. DePaul is 0-3 in the Big East. They played Villanova close, St. John’s not as close, and UConn not really close at all. They’ve accrued six losses, but all of them but an inexplicable 13 point home defeat to Buffalo make sense. They’ve played teams better than them and they’ve lost. Their win at Wichita State isn’t terribly impressive, but it’s a quad two, same as the best of any of Xavier’s wins. But, crucially, Xavier has a Big East win. Should they emerge from this game with two, they’ll have put some open air between them and the Blue Demons at the bottom. Sometimes, you take the little wins.
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Team Fingerprint
Here is a comprehensive list of everything DePaul does well on offense:
Ok, with that out of the way, it’s worth noting that DePaul actually has a pretty decent defense. The Demons are 60th in the nation in efficiency and sixth in the Big East since conference play has started. They force a lot of non-steal turnovers and are excellent on defense inside the arc. While they defend well inside, they also limit attempts outside very well. Only 14 teams in the nation have allowed a lower percentage of opponent’s attempts to come from beyond the arc. Teams have generally shot well on those three point attempts, but that seems like it will be less of a concern against a Xavier team shooting 26.5% from deep over its last three games.
DePaul’s offense is worst in the Big East and 187th in the nation. It’s really bad.
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Players
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Starting matchups |
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|---|---|---|
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Layden Blocker |
Point Guard |
All Wright |
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Junior |
Class |
Sophomore |
|
6’2″, 195 |
Measurements |
6’3″, 190 |
|
11.1/2.4/3.7 |
Game line |
9/2.1/2.3 |
|
38.4/28.2/80 |
Shooting line |
45.9/45.8/87.5 |
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Blocker is a former top-50 recruit who has yet to establish himself as an efficient scorer at the college level, but is a pretty good point guard nonetheless. His defensive value is highlighted by his 3.9% steal rate, which is just outside the top 100 in the nation, and his A:TO sits just a shade under 2 to 1 on the season. |
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RJ Smith |
Shooting Guard |
Malik Messina-Moore |
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Junior |
Class |
Senior |
|
6’3″, 195 |
Measurements |
6’5″, 200 |
|
8/2.6/2.1 |
Game line |
8.5/2.8/3.9 |
|
39.1/35.7/83.3 |
Shooting line |
34.9/27.8/76.9 |
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Smith spent two years a Colorado before transferring and has mostly found use in his career as an effective catch and shoot guy. He is a threat from three at 38% for his career and is shooting 60% on jumpers from inside the arc. His overall FG numbers are drug down by a pretty putrid 7-21 mark at the rim, but when he’s able to refrain from the lane he’s an effective weapon on offense. |
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CJ Gunn |
Small Forward |
Tre Carroll |
|
Senior |
Class |
Senior |
|
6’7″, 200 |
Measurements |
6’8″, 235 |
|
13.9/3.5/1.8 |
Game line |
16/5.5/2.9 |
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45.5/34.5/76.2 |
Shooting line |
47.3/37.3/58.8 |
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Gunn does a little bit of everything for DePaul, but there isn’t really one single number that will jump off the page at you. He leads the team in scoring and has respectable shooting splits considering his volume, does his fair share of rebounding and shot blocking, and gets almost 2 assists per game. His two main weaknesses are his propensity for turning the ball over, which he does at a 1 to 1 ratio with his assists, and foul trouble, which he finds himself in more frequently than one would like for a team’s leading scorer and has led to him foulding out of DePaul’s last two games. |
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Kaleb Banks |
Power Forward |
Filip Borovicanin |
|
Senior |
Class |
Senior |
|
6’8″, 215 |
Measurements |
6’9″, 227 |
|
7.6/3.3/0.7 |
Game line |
9.1/7.8/4.3 |
|
44.3/39.5/67.7 |
Shooting line |
47.7/28.6/90.9 |
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Banks operates as a stretch 4, chucking up nearly half his shots from deep, but cedes some of the rebounding that one might expect from a more traditional big. When he gets hot, he can carry the offense as evidenced by his 19 and 10 on 8-16 from the floor against St. John’s, but he is also capable of disappearing as evidence by his 2 and 6 on 1-9 shooting in the two games since. |
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NJ Benson |
Center |
Jovan Milicevic |
|
Senior |
Class |
Sophomore |
|
6’8″, 235 |
Measurements |
6’10”, 241 |
|
10.9/6.4/1.1 |
Game line |
10.9/4.2/1.3 |
|
65.7/0/47.8 |
Shooting line |
39.5/41.4/62.9 |
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Benson does all the dirty work in the paint for DePaul and he does it pretty efficiently. He is 36-36 on dunks this season, which is meaningful when compared to Xavier’s entire roster which is 23-31. Yes, this guy has made more dunks than Xavier has attempted. He also rebounds well at both ends, having 6 games this season with 3 or more offensive rebounds. His effectiveness is limited when he gets away from the rim, but he’s sure to be a test for whoever Xavier puts on him in the post. |
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Three Questions
– What is Xavier? Is Xavier a freewheeling three point shooting team? If so, they need to make more threes. Are they a team that thrives on speed and pressure? If so, being 146th in the nation in forcing turnovers is likely not helping. Are they a team that gets the ball in the paint and does damage at the line? Just no. It’s hard to tell right now exactly what Xavier is supposed to be. Figuring that out would help them going forward.
– Is Malik Messina-Moore back? Triple M has been in double figures each of the last three games and is shooting 6-17 beyond the arc in that stretch. Maybe more importantly, he’s actually shooting. Right now no one in the Big East plays a higher percentage of their team’s minutes than Malik. Xavier has to have him as a weapon out there.
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– Can Xavier recover again? The last time they got obliterated they bounced back better than an Ed Cooley water bottle off a toddler’s chest. They once again got slapped down in their last game and once again find themselves on the road needing to correct things. This is the time for slide arrest.
Three keys
-Keep traveling well. There’s something to be said for sleeping in your own bed, but Xavier has been better on the road than at home this year. Their three worst losses – Santa Clara, Creighton, and UConn – all came at Cintas, and their two Q2 wins were neutral against West Virginia and at Georgetown. I’ll be stunned if we’re talking about quads in any meaningful capacity with this team in March, but this is another chance to pick up a conference road kill and they’d do well to take advantage of it.
-Keep the pace high. DePaul’s four fastest games this year are all wins, but they were against teams ranked 345th or worse in the KenPom. Against solid opposition, the Blue Demons try to drag the game into the mud and win slowly. Xavier plays fast on offense, and if they can avoid having to try to score against a set defense, so much the better.
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-Continue to establish an identity. The Xavier teams of my childhood punched above their weight and were a whole greater than the sum of their parts. The program has been searching for that identity for the better part of a decade, arguably since Chris Mack left. Richard Pitino’s first iteration of Musketeers got clobbered by Santa Clara, then bounced back well in Charleston. They got embarrassed against Creighton, then recovered nicely for a gritty win at Georgetown. Now their on the mat for a third time, having been dead and buried two media timeouts in against UConn. This is not a team that I’m comfortable prognosticating any sort of tournament for, but if th
