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by Michael Whiteside

April 2nd, 2003

A year ago at this time, DePaul was in search of a new basketball coach, and Dave Leitao was hoping to win the job while at the same time praying that he was making the right decision. With the Blue Demons coming off of two consecutive losing seasons and last-place finishes in the American Division of Conference USA, the DePaul program had lost much of the luster from its now distant glory days of the 70’s and 80’s.

Couple that with a dwindling fan base and an athletic director that only a mother could love (who departed shortly after Leitao was hired), and you had a situation that most career-minded college basketball coaches wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole.

So how did Leitao do in his first year on the job with a team that was picked in the pre-season by most of the so-called experts, as well as his fellow C-USA coaches, to finish dead last (or at best no higher than sixth place) in the seven-team American Division of the league? How about going from nine overall victories during the 2001-02 campaign to 16 wins a year later and achieving the biggest year-to-year improvement in the conference (from 2-14 to 8-8) while playing in C-USA’s most rugged division (which also included NCAA tournament teams Marquette, Louisville, and Cincinnati plus NIT invitee, St. Louis).

Add to that the end of years-long losing streaks to rivals Cincinnati and Louisville capped off with a berth in the NIT (DePaul’s first appearance in the post-season in three years), and most observers would call that a pretty successful first season for DePaul’s new skipper. Oh, by the way, all of this was accomplished with a roster devoid of a true Division-I caliber point guard?

In an effort to maximize his team’s potential strengths while minimizing its weaknesses (i.e. no natural point guard, limited talent overall in the backcourt, and a general lack of team speed), Leitao instilled a sense of hard work and hustle in his team, which learned how to win games with defense (holding opponents to 64.9 ppg) and rebounding (+6.9 rebounding margin per game).

So when Leitao decided last year to plunge head first into the DePaul job, could he have really expected his team to come so far so fast? “A lot of people try to put numbers around expectations, and I didn’t know, nor did I want to do that, because there were so many questions that had to be answered when I first got here,” said Leitao. “My thought was just to try to restore respect and dignity and some of the things that DePaul has always stood for, at least in my eyes…and that was my goal in our first season, without expectations of winning 10, 15, 20 or however many games, was to have people think very positively about what DePaul is and where it’s going. So from a structural standpoint, that’s what I thought should have happened, and I’m happy to say that I think that has happened and it’s on its way to getting better.”

Leitao is also the first to acknowledge that he couldn’t have turned the ship around without a strong commitment from his players. “I give a lot of credit to our guys in being first and foremost good people,” said Leitao.

“In order to do anything as a group,” added Leitao, “you have to have people who are willing to commit to something, and in order to do that they have to start at the core of being good people. So I think that’s the first and most important part of what we’re trying to do. And then having them want something. I think there were enough people around here that didn’t give them the kind of respect they thought they deserved, not just as basketball players but as student athletes, that if they could come together for a common cause that would be good.”

It would also be good to add a few more talented players to next year’s DePaul roster, especially with the departure of Third Team All C-USA performer, Sam Hoskin, who led the team with 15.6 ppg and also pulled down 7.6 rpg. Certainly not competing from a position of strength relative to more established programs, last fall Leitao put together a consensus top-20 recruiting class that includes talented guards, Tyler Smith and Sammy Mejia, along with versatile big man, Wesley Green, all top-100 ranked high school players nationally.

Leitao also signed Illinois All-State forward, Marcus Heard, and received a verbal commitment from multi-dimensional forward, Lorenzo Thompson, of Chicago Public League champion Crane High School.

The Blue Demons also return rebounding sensation, Andre Brown, who will be a senior next year.

As he starts to add more pieces to the puzzle, Leitao envisions a more up-tempo style of play for the Blue Demons of the future. “Just having more depth and having more options, both scoring options and defensive options, and people that can handle the ball a little bit more,” said Leitao. “I want to be able to expand and get more to where I’m comfortable…that’s being able to extend the floor and run a little bit more and pressure a little bit more and cause the game to be played a certain way. To have a team that pressures and forces the action defensively, and plays fast break basketball. I think we were so much more ball control this year, I’d like to see that change first and foremost.”

So now that DePaul made the NIT this year, what’s it going to take to reach the next level (i.e. the NCAA Tournament)? “I think you have to continue to work your behind off, not only on the court, but off the court to help prepare your program for that,” said Leitao. “Establishing a program that is not just going to be a one-hit wonder and go to the NCAA tournament once and not have it be consistently….There are so many areas that you can talk about that contribute to a successful basketball program and an NCAA caliber team, and those are the things that we’re addressing right now.”

E-Mail the Author: Michael Whiteside