It is only the third week of January, too early to speak of critical games and defeats crushing enough to alter a season. Still, the game DePaul lost 59-50 Saturday to Louisville at Allstate Arena comes justthisclose to being both.
The Blue Demons needed it, obviously, to hold home court in the Big East race, which is always vital. They also needed it, again obviously, to enhance their tournament possibilities, which hang on every victory they can grab. But there was more at work as well.
“I drew a picture [before the game], it was primitive, on the board of a foundation and a skyscraper,” coach Jerry Wainwright explained minutes after the defeat. “I think we’ve reached a certain level [in that building], and we’ve fought like heck to get to that level.
“This loss isn’t going to knock us off that level, but it delays our start to the next one. My message to the kids [last] week was, `Let’s move on to the next level.’ What does that really mean? You start to string some conference wins in a row.
“I will say this, though. We’re not going back down to the basement. That might have happened last year.”
That was also the message delivered by his players even as they fell in a game that could have been staged in a dark alley. It was a game of bumps and grinds, of banging bodies and bruising forearms, of attacking defenses and aggressive defenders amid officials who pretty much ignored it all to simply let them play in muscular Big East tradition.
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Nothing came easily. Every point was earned, and that transformed it into a low-possession game in which each one was as crucial as any being’s next breath. To miss a scoring chance was to dance with disaster. But that was the mistake the Blue Demons (12-8, 3-3) consistently made, which ultimately was the reason they lost.
Four times they went to the line after being fouled while shooting, and they missed all eight of those free throws. Draelon Burns missed the front end of a one-and-one that would have put the Blue Demons up by a point with 5 minutes 23 seconds remaining, then missed two more after Andre McGee had converted two for the Cardinals (13-6, 3-2).
Forty-five seconds later, with Louisville’s lead still at three, Sammy Mejia missed two more, and McGee followed with a three-pointer that doubled his team’s lead.
“We missed some free throws at a very big time,” Wainwright said. “That changes everyone’s outlook, and it certainly changes strategy.”
That was certainly true. But there were other misdemeanors his team committed, a whole series of them that ultimately piled up into a felony. Twice they messed up on alley-oop passes, twice they failed to finish off fast breaks, twice they missed layups that were as open as any shot could be in a scrum like this one.
They got 19 points from Wilson Chandler, who missed one of those layups, and eight points and 11 rebounds from Keith Butler, who missed the other. But the Cardinals countered with a splendid performance from Juan Palacios, who scored 21 on 8-of-10 shooting, and by making 12 of their 19 free throws while the Blue Demons were going 9 of 18 at the line.
“In a physical, scratch-it-out kind game like that, you have to take advantage of every opportunity,” Wainwright said, and he was obviously correct.
His players’ effort could not be faulted. They never backed down. But they did spit in the face of Lady Luck and thus stayed on the same level where they were when they awoke Saturday morning.
And where is that level?
“We’re a ways from the penthouse now . . . but we can see the penthouse,” Wainwright said. “We’re not in that hole digging the foundation. We’ve earned the right, I think, to be looked at as a respected, hard-working program. We’re not going to lay down. We didn’t lay down today. We just didn’t make enough plays to win.
“I was extremely pleased with their grit and their effort. We just have to get a little more skilled at what we’re trying to do.”
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