Hopefully, this week in Madison Square Garden will say goodbye to the league in style, by winning a few consecutive games. The Blue Demons are part of the Catholic seven who are starting their own conference, and bringing the Big East name with them. Yes, seven Catholic schools gave up their conference for Lent.
DePaul will play Rutgers next in the final Big East as we know it tournament. “I do think we match-up against them well, and of course we won the game here,” Purnell said of the match-up with the Scarlet Knights.
“This is our NCAA tournament,” Purnell said of the Big East tournament. “We play Rutgers (on Tuesday). If we win, we keep going. So it functions exactly like a NCAA tournament. That’s the approach we have to take.”
The team will need to rebound quickly from a disappointing senior day loss to Pitt on Saturday. The Blue Demons and Scarlet Knights are scheduled for a 8 p.m. CDT start following the Seton Hall-USF game. You can catch that game on 670 The Score or ESPNU. The Blue Demons are looking for their third straight win over Rutgers and enter the tournament as the 14th seed while the Scarlet Knights are the No. 11 seed. DePaul claimed the lone regular-season meeting by a 75-69 score on Feb. 16 at Allstate Arena.
Of course, Taylor Swift is to writing bitter songs about ex-boyfriends what DePaul is to losing Big East tournament games. They are just 1-5 all-time in league tournament play, and they’ve been the bottom seed #16, four of the five times they’ve entered the tourney.
The winner of the DePaul-Rutgers game advances to the second round to play sixth-seeded Notre Dame on Wednesday night. That game will be on ESPN2 and WSCR 670 AM.
Paul M. Banks is CEO of The Sports Bank.net, a Google News site generating millions of visitors. He’s an author who also contributes regularly to MSN, Fox Sports , Chicago Now, Walter Football.com and Yardbarker
Banks has appeared on Comcast SportsNet and the History Channel, as well as Clear Channel, ESPN and CBS radio all over the world. President Barack Obama follows him on Twitter (@Paul_M_BanksTSB)