The DePaul men’s basketball team has yet to play a game this season, but the Blue Demons’ roster got stronger and deeper with the news that four-star recruit Keon Edwards is reclassifying from 2021 to 2020. 

Edwards announced on his Instagram that he is graduating early and will be joining DePaul’s team this season. The Blue Demons now have two freshmen on the roster, Edwards and Kobe Elvis. 

Edwards signed with DePaul in the early signing period back in November, and was ranked No. 41 by ESPN. Last season, he played at Hillcrest Prep in Arizona, averaging 14.3 points, 5.5 rebounds, 2.6 assists, 2.4 steals and 1.9 blocks in 18 game

DePaul’s 2021 recruiting class will drop in the team rankings as the Blue Demons lose a recruit for next season. But the team still has four other players who already signed their national letter of intent for next year: Ahamad Bynum, Kok Yat, David Jones and Brett Hardt Jr. 

“We wanted to try to amass a good amount of talent in this recruiting class with a premium that we wanted to have was overall skill. Everyone in this group brings a particular skill package that will help us,” DePaul men’s basketball head coach Dave Leitao said in November. “The difficulty in this whole process is that no one has been on campus and we as a staff have not been off campus to recruit. 

“It has been a challenge and credit goes to our whole staff that did a phenomenal job in identifying people even before the pandemic and creating and developing relationships with recruits and those around them. We feel this is the start of something great for our program and a place where people will look differently at DePaul basketball than they have before.”

The Blue Demons are still waiting to play their first game of the season after canceling and postponing their first four games of the season due to positive Covid-19 test results. DePaul also had to cancel its game at Iowa State on Dec. 6 because of a positive test result. Two days later, the team announced they are again pausing team activities following additional positive test results.  

As a result, the Blue Demons’ first two Big East games of the season — at Seton Hall and at Villanova — were also postponed. DePaul’s next scheduled game is against Xavier on Dec. 18 at Wintrust Arena.