DePaul Basketball Loses By 10 To Villanova: 4 Takeaways

DePaul basketball was swept in their season series with the Villanova Wildcats tonight. The final score was 59-49.

In their last matchup, DePaul lost, 56-100, on the road. This time, the game was much closer.

DePaul basketball was led by David Thomas. He scored a season-high 16 points, 1 block, and 1 steal. He accomplished this by shooting 6-13 (46.2%) from the field and 4-10 (40%) from downtown.

For Villanova, they were led by Jordan Longino with 17 points, 3 rebounds, and 2 assists. He shot 8-14 (57.1%) from the floor.

Here are four takeaways from the loss.

Takeaway #1: David Thomas

A season high in scoring and a great shooting performance from Thomas. With the loss of Conor Enright for the rest of the season after having a procedure on his shoulder, fans will be seeing more from him on the court.

Blue Demons head coach Chris Holtmann spoke on how Thomas has shown maturity and stayed ready to prepare for an event like this.

“Really proud of David,” Holtmann said when asked about what the bench showed him going forward. “You know, he stayed ready. He’s shown a real maturity all year.

When asked about his performance tonight after stepping up in Enright’s absence, Thomas talked about his mindset of always staying ready that he’s had the entire season.

“It’s unfortunate that we got some guys out now,” Thomas said. “Coach has been telling me not even like recently, but like the whole season just stay ready and I just made sure to come into practice, not having a down mindset just coming to practice everyday and play like I’m gonna play 30 minutes, so I feel like that really helped me.”

Takeaway #2: Villanova Basketball Defense Improving

This season, Villanova has struggled defensively. The Wildcats were ranked 181st on KenPom’s defensive efficiency rankings, but now they are 130th.

Villanova was able to hold DePaul to its lowest amount of points this season.

The Blue Demons prefer to shoot the ball from behind the arc. The team attempts 9.8 three-pointers per game on average.  Villanova was able to limit DePaul to 19.4% on three-pointers.

“At the end of the day, you’re going to have games throughout the season where you will struggle to make shots or your offense is not clicking,” Neptune said. “If you can defend the way we defended, you always give yourself a chance.”

Senior forward Enoch Boakye collected a team-leading 10 rebounds in the paint. Villanova won the rebound battle, 38-33.

Despite the 62-60 loss to Creighton on Feb. 1, Villanova played solid defense in that game, too. With two well-defended games, the Wildcats are on a path to balancing their play between the offensive and defensive sides of the ball.

“If you’re going to be a good team by the end, you have to be able to not let offense dictate your wins and losses,” Neptune said. “It has to be defense. You have to defend and rebound at the highest level and I think we did that tonight.”

Takeaway #3: Poor shooting from DePaul basketball

DePaul basketball shot 7-36 (19.4%) from beyond the arc tonight against Villanova.

Both teams only made seven three-point shots, but the Blue Demons more than doubled the attempts the Wildcats took from downtown.

Besides Thomas, no other Blue Demon scored more than one three-point shot, if at all. Jacob Meyer, C.J. Gunn, and Isaiah Rivera had the poorest shooting night, shooting a combined 2-22 (9.09%) from long range. Both Rivera and Gunn each shot 1-9 (11.1%) from beyond the arc.

Holtmann mentioned in his opening statement during the post game press conference that the team didn’t make enough open looks. He would further expand upon that later in the conference.

“It’s all about the quality of the looks, and for the most part, I thought we got really high quality looks,” Holtmann said regarding DePaul basketball’s shooting performance. “So that’s the thing we’re evaluating. What’s the quality of the looks? I think we got to look at it. I think C.J. had a handful of ones that he needs to pass on. Outside of that, there were really quality looks that I’m not gonna tell our guys not to shoot.”

This will be something the team will look to improve, especially with three key players out for an extended period.

Takeaway #4: A Healthy Jordan Longino

Villanova senior forward Jordan Longino has battled injuries throughout his entire collegiate career. This past summer was Longino’s first fully healthy offseason. It mattered a lot for the guard who has not lived up to the standards he holds himself.

Being healthy has paid off. Longino had a slow start to the season through non-conference play but heated up early in Big East play.

Longino led the Wildcats with 17 points on 8-14 from the field.

He was not just successful offensively. Longino made multiple defensive plays including a huge block late in the first half.

“I thought [Longino] was great throughout. He had some timely buckets,” Neptune said. “A lot of teams have come in here. 
It’s a tough place to play, overtime games, etc. So at the end of the day, I was proud of how our guys competed.”

Over his last six games, Longino is averaging 16.8 points on 48.7% field goal shooting. He has developed into one of the most consistent players on the Villanova roster and has stepped up when graduate forward Eric Dixon is contained.

Next up for DePaul basketball (11-13, 2-11): at #11 Marquette (18-5, 9-3) – Feb. 11 at 7:30 p.m. CST

Next up for Villanova basketball (13-10, 6-6): vs. Xavier (14-9, 6-6) – Feb. 9 at Noon EST