DePaul Basketball Loses To St John’s: 3 Takeaways

DePaul basketball still seeks their first conference win in almost two years, that win didn’t come tonight. They lost to the St. John’s Red Storm by a score of 61-89.

The Blue Demons still face struggles against their conference opponents. It’s still early in the season, at least for conference play, so there’s still time to fix the issues that show themselves in these losses.

Layden Blocker led the team in scoring for DePaul basketball with 17 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists, and 1 steal in the loss. He accomplished this while shooting 5-11 (45.4%) from the field and 7-10 (70%) from the charity strike. He only took one three-point shot and it did not fall in.

For the Red Storm, they were led by R.J. Luis Jr. who scored 19 points and 5 rebounds. He shot 7-11 (63.6%) overall and 5-6 (83.3%) from the free-throw line.

Here are three takeaways from the loss:

Takeaway #1: Conor Enright needs to work on limiting turnovers

Conor Enright is a great playmaking guard. He leads the Big East Conference in average assists per game (7.5). However, he also is tied with Creighton’s Steven Ashworth in average turnovers per game (3.2).

Against the St. John’s, Enright turned the ball over six times. This is more than the four turnovers he allowed against Wichita State this past week. This is a recurring trend with his play that costs the team in several aspects of the game, most notably, opposing points from turnovers.

The Red Storm outscored DePaul basketball off of turnovers 27-8. This is the result of the 20 turnovers by the Blue Demons as opposed to St. John’s 8. As a team, the Blue Demons average the third-most turnovers per game in the conference (12.8), behind only Seton Hall and Creighton.

Takeaway #2: The Red Storm had a four-headed dragon in scoring and glass-crashing

Four players from the home team scored double-digit points. Besides Luis Jr. (19), Kadary Richmond (18), Simeon Wilcher (16), and Zuby Ejiofor (12) were the other threats to DePaul basketball in tonight’s matchup.

These players all came to play and made life a living nightmare for their opponents.

They all were also key contributors in the paint, securing multiple rebounds. This led to the Red Storm outrebounding DePaul basketball 41-29. Both Richmond and Ejiofor secured 7 rebounds. Meanwhile, Luis Jr. grabbed 5 rebounds, and Wilcher snatched 4.

Takeaway #3: Layden Blocker

Blocker did not score against the Providence Friars and only followed that up with 3 points against Wichita State. He rebounded from that rough stretch tonight with his 17 points.

He also compounded this performance by being a pest on the defensive end and forcing many deflections. Granted, he only got a single steal against St. John’s, but he still made the opposing offense face challenge after challenge. This is something head coach Chris Holtmann said previously about both him and Jacob Meyer in their previous game against the Shockers.

Bonus Takeaway: DePaul basketball needs to continue to work on their interior defense

The Blue Demons were outscored in the paint 56-24 by the Red Storm, that is not something fans want to see, to say the least. This was one of the main reasons why DePaul basketball never held a lead the entire game.

When you look at the four leading scorers from St. John’s that were previously mentioned, only one of them had successfully scored a three-point shot. Wilcher shot 2-3 (66.7%) from beyond the arc. The others either didn’t shoot from downtown at all or failed to score in their attempts (Richmond and Ejiofor shot 0-1 from beyond the arc, Luis Jr. didn’t take any three-point shots).

That elusive conference win still is yet to come, and it remains to be seen if the Blue Demons can get a win against their strong conference opponents.

Next up for DePaul (8-3, 0-2): at Northwestern (8-3) – Dec. 21 at 3 p.m. CST (4 p.m. EST)

Next up for St. John’s (9-2, 1-0): at Providence (7-5, 1-0) – Dec. 20 at 7 p.m. EST (6 p.m. CST)