DePaul guard Conor Enright may not be the loudest voice in the locker room or the biggest guy on the team, but his teammates and coaches see him as a leader for this new era of DePaul men’s basketball.
“I just want to resurge DePaul and get their respect back,” Enright said of Blue Demon fans and the Big East conference in general.
A transfer from Drake University and graduate of suburban Mundelein High School, the redshirt junior was looking to take the next step to a high-major school that was closer to his hometown.
Darien Devries, now the head basketball coach at West Virginia, was Enright’s coach at Drake. Enright considered heading to West Virginia with his former coach, but DePaul head coach Chris Holtmann said he recruited Enright like a “five-star transfer.”
“I felt like his personality as a player would be attractive to DePaul fans, people who love DePaul and care about DePaul basketball,” Holtmann said. “He’s going to be important in terms of establishing an identity in how we want to be as a program.”
Holtmann was prioritizing multi-year eligible transfer players when constructing the roster. Enright came to DePaul with two years of eligibility left, after he sat out his freshman year at Drake to gain an extra year of eligibility.
Holtmann believes that by having Enright on the team, he will be able to bring more aggression out of his teammates.
“He brings a competitiveness, an everyday approach and energy that you’d expect from an older guy and an older guy that’s won,” Holtmann said. “He’s a really unselfish kid, and I think that that kind of unselfishness and work ethic will be contagious among our guys.”
For Enright, coming to DePaul was an easy decision. Enright said that he turned down schools in California and out West that recruited him because he “did not want to be that far from home.”
“I can just see the family, go home for dinner that’s 50 minutes away,” Enright said, mentioning that he has several cousins in the Chicago area.
He also said that with the ball in his hands more, Holtmann and DePaul believe he can take another step in his game.
“I think kind of envisioning a bigger role offensively was appeasing to me,” Enright said. “Also taking a leadership role, even more so.”
That leadership role, even a few months in, is noticeable among Enright’s teammates.
DePaul guard Layden Blocker, a sophomore Arkansas transfer, said he is trying to learn as much as he can from Enright.
“As a young player, I’m still learning and growing as a point guard,” Blocker said. “He’s probably the one player I got to take some things from.”
Enright jokingly describes himself as “an asshole on the court.” Several DePaul players have familiarity with each other by playing last year in the Missouri Valley Conference.
Enright isn’t shy to bring up the “friendly” banter he had with other Missouri Valley Conference players.
“It comes up from time to time. I might have won two championships, but NJ’s (Benson) team kind of had my number throughout our career,” Enright said.
They all “still talk crap” with each other.
“We got plenty of stuff to go back and forth on, but it’s all fun. I think it brings us closer.”
When he was at Missouri State, DePaul forward NJ Benson did not like playing against Enright at Drake.
“We did not get along,” Benson admitted. “Now just being able to compete with him and seeing how hard he plays, it’s amazing. That guy brings it every day.”
He says most people would not think Enright is a “big talker.”
“But Conor is a big talker,” Benson said. “Anything he sees on social media he’s bringing it over to you. He’s laughing and joking all the time. That’s just the type of person he is.”
Before the season starts on Nov. 4, Holtmann said he will make Enright do one thing: grow his mustache back.
“I think that’s important,” Holtmann said, grinning. “I want to establish that on the front end that I think that’s going to be a requirement for him to have it.”
Even though Enright has fun off the court, he does have his sights set on something more serious — bringing DePaul back to prominence.
“I think we got to play with the chip on our shoulder for sure,” Enright said. “None of us were here the last couple of years, but people look at DePaul and see it a certain way right now.”
“We want to flip that.”
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