How you gonna keep ’em in Lincoln Park after they’ve had Pig Pickin’s pit Bar BQ with hush puppies?
Big-time college basketball is just where DePaul and Pat Kennedy left it, a bit longer away for the Blue Demons than for the coach, down Tobacco Road and just around the corner from Bug Tussle.
“There’s one good restaurant in town,” said Kennedy, who used to bring his Florida State team here to lose to Wake Forest and Tim Duncan. Kennedy recited the name from memory, something much too cosmopolitan to have a drive-through window or slaw by the quart.
Kennedy sees his job here as equal parts tour guide and basketball coach for however long it is needed. He wants his team to soak up the flavor of tournament basketball, even in the East subregion, and it doesn’t get much more sub than this. He wants his team to carry tales home of how the other half lives, so that one day DePaul, too, can grumble like 10-time Final Four-ist Kansas about being underappreciated.
“A No. 8 seed?” asked Kansas coach Roy Williams. “I mean we are 23-9, with either the eighth- or 10th-toughest schedule and ranked 17 to 20 in the power ratings ourselves. How is that a No. 8 seed?”
Here’s my guess about Williams. Even though he is from North Carolina, a former assistant to Dean Smith, the hot rumor to be back with the Tar Heels and obviously a whiz at NCAA math, I bet Williams doesn’t know the only decent restaurant in town.
Quick quiz: Which coach is talking here?
“We had high expectations coming into this season. We were looking for a big-time year, and we haven’t done that. We’re not smooth and we’re not efficient, and at times we are downright ugly. We haven’t been a very pretty team, but we can make other teams look ugly too.
“If we play well and we get lucky, maybe they will let us hang around and play another game.”
This was Williams speaking of Kansas, but the sentiment fits DePaul even more exactly, because Kansas looks at getting by as disappointing, while DePaul has come to depend on it.
DePaul, seeded No. 9, is just tickled to be anywhere, at any ranking, against anybody, because the last time DePaul won an NCAA tournament game, it had to go to Boise, Idaho, and that was one desert war and another George Bush ago.
“We know what time it is,” said DePaul forward Bobby Simmons. “Is that Simmons or Simons?” asked the news conference moderator. See, you stay away for eight years and nobody bothers to learn your name.
The one name familiar beyond Chicago is Quentin Richardson, known widely and initially as “Q.” He made a lasting impression on Williams, who tried to entice him to Lawrence, Kan., before Richardson chose his hometown.
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“One of the most relentless offensive rebounders in the nation,” Williams said. “One of the great perimeter players coming out of high school. He’s scary. A hard matchup.”
Williams has not seen Richardson lately, especially on the perimeter, a place “Q” fits like an igloo in a hothouse. Could Williams, ever the schemer, be suggesting to Kennedy to misplace Richardson where he will do Kansas the least harm?
Probably not, because Richardson has been hard to fit anywhere, on the floor, into expectations, onto postseason All-America teams.
“The other players deserve the honors,” said Richardson, being honest. “They had much better years than me.”
While Richardson may have been a much greater player in promise when both DePaul and Kansas were hot to enroll him than he is given credit for being now, the fact remains DePaul is where it had no chance of being without him.
“I was looking at four or five years,” said Kennedy of DePaul making the tournament. “Here we are in three. This was always a rebuilding process. We have got to feel positive about it.”
Kennedy’s grand plan is designed to go beyond Richardson and Simmons and the present. He now has to fill in for the future, starting with a shooting a guard who can get his own shot. Finding one is even more important than beating Kansas. Winning a tourney game or two would be a bonus, but not an obligation.
“This is just a great experience for our youngsters,” Kennedy said. “It’s good for us to get a taste of it. To propel us into next year. We’ll start next year, talking about being here.”
I’m guessing the aftertaste of the Bar BQ will last at least that long.