About the DePaul Basketball
In recent years, the DePaul Blue Demons have struggled to make their mark on the college basketball world. It’s been common for fans to find cheap DePaul basketball tickets with the team struggling on the court. But DePaul is still a program with a proud history and a prime location in a major city. Plus, the Blue Demons play in the mighty Big East and are starting to show signs of a comeback, making last-minute DePaul basketball tickets well worth the price of admission.
Four Decades with a Legend
Ray Meyer is the coach who first put DePaul basketball on the map. He coached the Blue Demons from 1942 to 1984, to a winning record 37 times in those 42 seasons. The Hall of Famer’s legendary run at DePaul included 21 postseason appearances, highlighted by the Blue Demons reaching the Final Four in 1943 and 1979 while also winning the NIT in 1944. The final years of Meyer’s tenure were some of his best, as DePaul went to the NCAA Tournament seven times in his last nine years, including the Final Four appearance in 1979 and a trip to the Sweet 16 to cap off a 27-3 record in his final season.
Heading East
After his retirement, Meyer’s son Joey took over as DePaul’s head coach, taking the Blue Demons to the NCAA Tournament seven times in his first eight seasons. But DePaul soon started to sputter, and it didn’t get any easier when they joined the Big East in 2005. Under the likes of Jerry Wainwright and Oliver Purnell, there were some dark years, as the Blue Demons struggled to keep up in one of the best leagues in college basketball history. However, the return of Dave Leitao in 2015 gave the Blue Demons a much-needed boost. Leitao had a successful three-year stint at DePaul that helped earn the program an invite to the Big East, and he is once again in the process of making the Blue Demons a winning program.
