Oliver Purnell has won everywhere he’s been; except for DePaul. It’s very mysterious why that is, but after four seasons in Lincoln Park, Purnell has shown zero progress. Regress is the only movement DePaul basketball has seen under the Coach hired away from Clemson.
It’s hard to understand why there is so little local media chatter right now about Oliver Purnell not being on the hot seat, given the terrible record he’s accumulated in leading the Blue Demons these past four years. In fact, DePaul’s Athletic Director Jean Lenti Ponsetto confirmed to the Chicago Tribune last night that Oliver Purnell will return for the fifth year of his seven year deal.
On the other hand, it’s actually quite simple to understand why media coverage of Purnell’s undeserved return is so sparse. Blue Demons basketball has fallen so far below what it used to be that any discussion of it- good or bad- is in very low demand these days.
Just when you thought DPU and Oliver Purnell hit rock bottom, last night’s senior night train wreck occurred. Butler came in with just two Big East wins, and they thoroughly dominated the Demons from start to finish.
This tweet from Campus Insiders Analyst Dave Miller last night said it best:
As a DePaul alum, this is not acceptable. I’m sorry.
— Dave Miller (@Miller_Dave) March 7, 2014
The Blue Demons began the game cold, making just one of their first eight shots and trailed 15-2 at the 11:21 mark to a 2-14 in conference team. Remember, this Butler team is a world away from the Butler of Brad Stevens who reached two national title games.
“Butler has just been awful,” said ESPN analyst Jay Bilas on conference call this week. However, that awful team led DePaul 38-18 at the break and went on to win 79-46.
In answering a question about the Big East, Bilas barely touched on DePaul. Understandable since the program’s Q rating is in a completely different universe from the days of Ray Meyer and his son Joey. When I was a kid in the 1980s, DePaul used to have its game televised on the Superstation WGN, and the Rosemont Horizon was a place to see and be seen.
These days, Blue Demons basketball does about as well with attendance figures and television ratings numbers as it does with victories and defeats. You’ll find more people roaming a nuclear weapons testing ground then you will the upper deck at AllState Arena on game night. With the loss last night, DePaul secured at least a share of last place in the Big East for the sixth consecutive season. They finish the conference season 3-15m tying the high water mark for Oliver Purnell a couple seasons ago.
His other seasons produced a 1-17 and 2-16 mark. Yet DPU has no interest in going another direction; indicating that they’re fine with lowering the bar. They’ve tacitly accepted the diminished standards by letting Purnell return to try and “rebuild.”
You can’t blame Purnell anymore, we should all be so lucky to be so highly compensated despite not having to be effective at our job.
Oliver Purnell leaving Clemson for DePaul is like Shelley Long leaving “Cheers” for…whatever it is she did with her life after that
— Paul M. Banks (@PaulMBanks) March 7, 2014
In the past, I’ve said that Oliver Purnell’s regime at DePaul is comparable to Tim Beckman leading Illinois football. At first glance, the comparison seems apt since both are unquestionably disaster hires. Both appointments destroyed the credibility of a once respected program.
However, I’ve now realized that analogy is flawed. Beckman is only in year two of his Reign of Terror, and he showed noticeable improvement in this second season. Not huge improvement, and not the level of improvement that’s even remotely close to acceptable, but improvement nonetheless. Beckman has only had two years of his own guys versus Purnell who’s had four.
Every college basketball or college football coach, barring a Bobby Petrino like level of malfeasance, deserves four years to get his program in place. In theory.
They deserve to put out a team that has all four classes of their own recruits to truly reflect their own competence.
In practice that doesn’t happen. A lot of coaches don’t even get that chance, and Oliver Purnell is getting extra opportunities. But the main reason that the Beckman analogy doesn’t work is because he hasn’t had the benefit of watered down conference competition. Yes, Big Ten football has degenerated in recent years, but nowhere near the extent that Big East basketball took a dive this season.
“I don’t know if I see parity as much as I see a bunch of average teams in the middle,” said Bilas
“The break-up of the old Big East saddened me for a variety of reasons.”
And that’s why Purnell’s failure this season is much more epic than his failure in recent years. That 3-15 record is much worse when you consider the weaker schedule.
“Outside of Doug McDermott, and maybe a couple other guys, there’s really no star power in the league,” said ESPN Analyst Fran Fraschilla on conference call.
And DePaul lacks star power as much as any conference team. Don’t expect that to change as long as Oliver Purnell is in charge.
Paul M. Banks owns The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. An MBA and Fulbright scholar, he’s also a frequent analyst on news talk radio; with regular segments on ESPN,NBC, CBS and Fox. A former NBC Chicago and Washington Times writer, he’s also been featured on the History Channel. President Obama follows him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)