DePaul extends Dave Leitao’s contract through 2023-24 season
DePaul head coach Dave Leitao yells at his team during their game against Buffalo on Dec. 8,
DePaul University and men’s basketball head coach Dave Leitao have mutually agreed to a contract extension on Thursday, per release. The contract extension will keep Leitao at the program’s helm through the end of the 2023-24 season.
A source told The DePaulia that Leitao’s new contract features no buyout and there is no guaranteed money beyond next season.
Leitao — the university’s highest paid employee, making more than $1 million each year — fell well short of expectations to turn the program around under the contract he signed in 2015. Over the last five years, Leitao’s Blue Demons finished last in the Big East four times, and has yet to notch a winning record through the end of the regular season despite winning 12 of their first 13 games this past season.
“We are happy to reach an agreement to continue the improvement and stability that Coach Leitao has instilled in our men’s basketball program,” Athletic Director Jean Lenti Ponsetto said in a statement. “His vision of academic excellence, athletic excellence and community service mirrors DePaul’s mission in developing outstanding student-athletes and future leaders in our society.”
After an NCAA ruling this past summer, Leitao’s program will face three years of probation for a recruiting violation, for which he also served a three-game suspension. When he returned to the sideline, the Blue Demons popped into the national spotlight with signature road wins over Iowa and Minnesota, and a stunning home victory over Texas Tech. With the Blue Demons in position to return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in almost two decades, a 3-15 conference record spoiled their chances.
DePaul’s season ended with a win in the opening round of the Big East Tournament over Xavier, and were slated to play No. 11 Villanova in the quarterfinals before the event was cancelled due to concerns of COVID-19.
“I appreciate DePaul athletics director Jean Lenti Ponsetto for her continued support,” Leitao said in a statement. “The process of laying the foundation for sustained success evolved into a strong start to this season before a tough run through the conference schedule. I’m proud of the resilience of our players and staff to finish the season strong before all of our lives were interrupted with the coronavirus outbreak. The response we received from our fans and supporters all season was outstanding and we can’t wait to continue to build excitement at Wintrust Arena in the future.”
Leitao previously coached DePaul from 2002-05 and led the program to their last NCAA Tournament appearance in 2004. After the 2004-05 season, Leitao left to be the head coach at Virginia. After serving four years, the New Bedford, Massachusetts native spent the 2011-12 season as the head coach of the Maine Red Claws in the G-League. Leitao then spent two years as an assistant coach at Missouri before taking the same job at Tulsa for the 2014-15 season.
Leitao’s first three years back at DePaul saw a total of nine Big East wins before winning seven in the 2018-19 season when the Blue Demons finished with a 19-17 record. This was DePaul’s first winning season in a decade, made possible by a run to the championship series of the College Basketball Invitation.
In the 2019-20 season, the Blue Demons went 16-16 and 3-15 in the Big East. Wins over Minnesota, Iowa and Texas Tech bolstered a successful non-conference schedule, which saw the Blue Demons rise up to No. 27 in the AP poll in late December. The start of Big East play, however, saw DePaul lose its first four conference games before defeating No. 5 Butler on Jan. 18 to improve to 1-4.
The Blue Demons would then go on to lose their next eight games before finishing the regular-season at 2-3, but Leitao and his team still went into the Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden as the 10th seed facing No. 7 Xavier. DePaul, however, was able to knock off the Musketeers 71-67 in the first round on March 11, and was slated to face Villanova the next night until the coronavirus put an end to all NCAA activities.
Leitao’s second tenure has also seen the program get in trouble with the NCAA. Last summer, the NCAA concluded that a former DePaul associate head coach violated the rules when he directed the former assistant director basketball of operations to provide impermissible recruiting benefits to a recruit. As a result, the NCAA suspended Leitao for the first three games of the 2019-20 season for failing to promote an atmosphere of compliance. The Blue Demons’ men’s basketball program was also placed on probation for three years.
After Leitao got suspended and the program was placed on probation, the school announced in September that they were working on a contract extension. But sources told The DePaulia that release was initially for recruiting purposes because Leitao’s last contract was expiring after the 2019-20 season, and recruits were asking the status of his contract.
With the contract extension now official, Leitao will be the Blue Demons’ head coach for the next four years. For the 2020-21 season, DePaul only has one official recruit in Kobe Elvis. But for the 2021-22 season, the Blue Demons currently have the No. 4 recruiting class with two four-star verbal commits in Ahamad Bynum and Keon Edwards.
Diana Walsh • Apr 7, 2020 at 8:36 pm
Sadly, this is a failure of leadership from Esteban to Leitao.
Mark my words, Esteban will be retiring in around 2 years after being a failure and ruining an exceptional school. Everything he touches and everyone he hires is a disaster. He should leave ASAP. Truth be told, my money will be directed elsewhere.
Another Ex Longtime Season Ticketholder • Apr 6, 2020 at 10:13 pm
Many more true Blue DePaul fans are going to reprioritize where their hard earned money and time goes….just saying. JLP has been an utter disappointment for quite some time. As opposed to giving Kleinschmidt and Booth, two esteemed basketball alums, who actually got an underachieving team after Wainwright to compete in some games despite not winning them, she brings in washed up Purnell and wastes countless millions. Those other two would have likely coached for far less at least to start, and might even have possibly turned the program around earlier. Then she follows Purnell by bringing back a man who left the program for more cheese. An alum and diehard fans are loyal and Leitao is not loyal. He left when he could have been loyal and never deserved another chance; Period. The program has suffered miserably after. It’s coupled with controversy that a lay person knows the coach knew more was going on than he proclaimed. Can’t blame potential recruits for choosing elsewhere and fans and alum for taking their time and money elsewhere. Shame on you JLP!
Maurice • Apr 4, 2020 at 3:22 pm
Guys get your panties out of your buns. Who fires a coach in the middle of a pandemic?? He has a contract for next year right? Its year to year no buy out clause… This is not the right time to be searching for a new coach. How do a new coach recruit right now with this pandemic.?? See you later with your season tickets, you’re fair weathered anyway. Don’t forget your mask while you cancel!!!
mike maloney • Apr 3, 2020 at 1:50 pm
The NIGHTMARE continues! JLP talks about “Athletic success” WhAT! All that there is has been a there is a complete failure. Last place for the for the about 9 out of the last ten years no matter what conference De Paul has been in. This administration is clueless!
Pat M • Apr 3, 2020 at 12:38 pm
Hadn’t seen anything in the press saying that only 1 year is guaranteed but even if that’s true – it’s completely stupid and pointless on both parties’ sides. From Letaio’s point of view, with Jalen C-L, Paul Reed and Devin ‘Gage leaving and no new talent signed to start in the Fall, team isn’t going to win in a “prove it” year. And if Jeannie/the school really did this 1 guaranteed year as a prove it year and really would really get rid of him after another bad season (which is hard to imagine given that they gave him a 4 year extension after the complete flop in the Big East Season – 12-1 start followed by 1-12 over the next 13 games —- really), why not move on from him now and get a new coach who has some life and talent? Also if this is really only 1 guaranteed year and he is a lame duck, how is that going to help recruiting (including getting the 2 ORAL commits to actually show up at DePaul)? If all/any of this is true, should have just pulled the band aid off now, let Letaio leave with Jeanie following him out the door when her contract expires on June 1st. Instead, they’ll re-up Jeannie (“for all the great work and stability” she’s created with the Program) and then not kick Letaoi out after the 1 guarantied year in which they’ll get destroyed in the Big East again (which I”m sure is what Letaio is counting on). With Ucon coming back to the Big East, I’m sure DePaul will still be the worst team in the Conference. Kicking the can (way) down the road and leaving us stuck with this disaster of a coach. Should NEVER have brought him back after he deserted us for the UVA job. This program and AD have no self respect or pride. TT
Ex Season Ticket Holder • Apr 3, 2020 at 10:07 am
SPEECHLESS on two counts…….Coach and AD should be long gone. Is the U President clueless?
Johnny • Apr 2, 2020 at 11:39 pm
Bourelly, you are a knucklehead. Verbal commits mean nothing. What decent player would attend this school after the nightmare of this past conference season. We will see if they put their signature on the paper. We had two four star recruits this past year in Weems and Jacobs . Weems was obviously the weak link in the starting five and Jacobs didn’t even play. Don’t expect any 4 star freshman to come in and turn any program around. This is by far the darkest day in DePaul basketball that I can remember.
Joseph Bourelly • Apr 2, 2020 at 8:10 pm
Look, only one year is guaranteed. I realize Leitao has not led the program back to the promised land, but the teams for the past two years have been the best the program has fielded in recent memory. Let’s see how next year goes, but the Big East is going to be a monster. ESPN already has Villanova #1, Creighton #3 and Butler #8 in its preseason rankings, not to mention UCONN joins the party with a really good recruiting class. I’m not only looking at the team’s win and loss record next year, but I’m keeping an eye on the program’s 2021 recruiting class. They already have two really good 4-star recruits in Keon Edwards and Ahamad Bynum.
Pat M • Apr 2, 2020 at 6:14 pm
This is such an awful move. He’s an awful game coach. We’ve had a lot of games over the last 3 years which came down to the last 4 or 5 minutes and we lost almost every one of them because we do not have/know how to run an offense. AD talks about stability and a “clean” program but he’s had a bunch of kids transfer out over the last 4 years. And can’t believe the Board of Trustees and AD rewarded him for violating NCAA rules and not controlling his assistants – don’t believe he didn’t know what was going on. Jeannie basically said the NCAA was wrong. Cheating and still can’t win – there’s a joke here somewhere. Free throw shooting is deadly. He leaves Butz in games in the last 2 minutes when everyone knows the other team is going to foul him intentionally (even if he doesn’t have the ball!) because they know he’ll miss. He’s completely disengaged during timeouts – spends most of the time talking to his assistant coaches while the players talk among themselves, limiting how much of the timeout he can actually use to talk to his players because he doesn’t know what to tell them. Anyone with eyes at the games could see that Reed was sick of him and was not going to come back – and I can’t blame him. I hope that Reed lands well in the draft but he should/probably would have stayed if Letaio wasn’t such an awful coach. He can’t come up with a set player rotation. Kid won’t play for weeks and then he’ll throw him in cold at crunch time – and wonders why he couldn’t get the job done. Jacobs is probably the next recruit to transfer out. Treating a high recruit like that as badly as Letaio did – and a Public School kid at that – is going to hurt recruiting. We have no commits for next year – and they give him 4 year extension. Ridiculous. Now we’re stuck with Jeanie too – had hoped they’d get rid of her when her contract expires June 1st. She’s a disaster and so is our Men’s Basketball program. The school, alumni and city deserve a lot more. I’m disgusted. Team started great and just completely fell apart. Has to fall on the coach! Complete lack of leadership to get them through tough times.
ChangeAtDPU • Apr 2, 2020 at 5:53 pm
Our family is DONE buying tickets and we’re DONE donating to the University. Where’s the accountability? Shame on Jean Lenti Ponsetto! Shame on President Esteban! Shame on the Board of Trustees for not upholding their fiduciary duty to DePaul University. Enough is enough. We’re DONE and we know we’re not the only ones.
Tony AZ • Apr 2, 2020 at 5:33 pm
April Fool’s Day was yesterday. It makes me upset to say this, but I can not watch this team until he leaves. Even American Dad tv show had a punchline several years ago about how bad this basketball team is. “Stupid DePaul can’t hit a free throw”