Texas Tech Gives DePaul Basketball First Loss: 3 Takeaways

DePaul basketball suffers its first loss of the season on the road against the Texas Tech Red Raiders. The final score was 76-62.

Almost no winning streaks last in sports, let alone college basketball. The Blue Demons only held the lead for under 120 seconds in the entire game as they suffered their first defeat of the season against the Red Raiders.

Throughout the first half, especially early on, the visitors struggled. Yet they closed the gap to 37-38 going into halftime. Once the second half began, the metaphorical wheels began to come off which resulted in the first loss for head coach Chris Holtmann with DePaul basketball.

In the second half, Chance McMillian and Darrion Williams scored 11 points each, and both players ended the night with over 20 points. The duo shot a combined 16-29 from the field (55.1%).

For DePaul basketball, Jacob Meyer led the team in scoring 14 points. He also was the best high-volume three-point shooter from both sides, shooting 4-5 (80%) in the matchup.

Takeaway #1: DePaul basketball has more growing pains to push through

It’s always rough when a team suffers their first loss, especially when you go on a lengthy run like the Blue Demons have. However, as most coaches will say, a loss is a learning experience. Losses are like the common cold; they’ll come and go. What teams can do is get back into a healthy rhythm sooner, rather than later, to correct mistakes they’ve made and prepare better for their next game.

DePaul basketball faced several setbacks. The entire starting lineup at times couldn’t get into a good pattern throughout the game. Isaiah Rivera, who led the team in scoring with 19 in their previous game against Valparaiso, only scored three points and only made 1-5 (20%) of his shots. Layden Blocker shot poorly in his regard, only scoring five points while shooting 2-7 overall (28.5%) and 1-6 (16.6%) from beyond the arc.

Troy D’Amico scored no points, shooting 0-2 in a pair of three-point shots. Conor Enright only scored six points while shooting 2-8 (25%) from the field and 2-7 from beyond the three-point line. He did make up for his poor shooting with a team-high nine assists in the loss. David Skogman scored the most points of the starting five, with nine points and eight rebounds.

In terms of shooting, the Blue Demons were atrocious in the second half. Overall, in the second half, they shot 10-28 (35.7%). The lowest part of the half was the team’s three-point shooting, which was 2-14 (14.2%) in the second half. That half was the worst three-point shooting performance from DePaul basketball this season. This overshadowed that the team shot better than the Red Raiders from long range (24-57 for the Blue Demons compared to 29-58 for Texas Tech). That resulted in a two percent difference at 31% for DePaul basketball and 29% for the Red Raiders.

Takeaway #2: Texas Tech forced lots of turnovers from their opponents.

DePaul basketball tried to play their usual, fast-paced offensive style against Texas Tech. However, one risk that comes with that playstyle is the risk of a high volume of turnovers. Against the Red Raiders, DePaul committed 16 turnovers compared to their opponents’ nine. This resulted in the home team scoring 21 points off of turnovers, the Blue Demons only scored 10.

Multiple Red Raiders players had at least one steal against their visitors, with two having at least three. Elijah Hawkins was the best on-ball defender of the night, recording four steals against the Blue Demons. He was followed by Williams who recorded a trio of steals.

Takeaway #3: The Blue Demons bench will continue to be a key factor for this team

Despite being outrebounded by their opponents (28-34), having poor free throw shooting (50% off of 3-6 from the charity strike), and being outscored in the paint (24-36), there were some bright spots in this loss for DePaul basketball. The biggest one was the bench, which outscored the opposing bench 39-21.

Besides Meyer’s 14 points, the next leading scorer was J.J. Traynor, who scored 11 points while shooting 5-6 (83.3%) from the field. N.J. Benson became another spark for the team off the bench, scoring nine points, five rebounds, and a pair of blocks.

The team has plenty of bumps coming for them this season. If the bench can continue to evolve as the season progresses, the Blue Demons should be able to get some key wins further down the way into conference matchups.

Next up for DePaul (7-1): vs. Providence (6-3) – Dec. 10 at 7:30 p.m. CST (8:30 EST)

Next up for Texas Tech (7-1): at #22 Texas A&M (7-2) – Dec. 8 at 2 p.m. CST (3 p.m. EST)