Year one under DePaul’s new men’s basketball head coach Chris Holtmann has been about building up the program’s foundation and getting DePaul back to relevance. 

Through 13 games, Holtmann has gotten his program national notoriety which hasn’t been the case in years past. 

DePaul’s 9-2 record in non-conference play is the programs best since the 2021-22 season. Already blowing past the low bar of three wins from a year ago. 

DePaul has had its fair share of rough stretches, but also had moments where one can believe the program is headed in the right direction. 

“I think we’ve made some real progress in a lot of areas,” Holtmann said. “I think we’ve had some really good moments. We’ve also had some good wins … I feel really good about where we’re headed, and feel really good about this group right now.” 

DePaul has faced a relatively easy schedule during the non-conference portion of the season. According to KenPom, their non-conference strength of schedule is ranked 355 out of 364 teams making it one of the weakest in the country. DePaul’s highest-ranked win came against Wichita State, currently ranked 102 overall by KenPom. 

It hasn’t been premier/hard opponents that Holtmann said that he wanted to schedule in his introductory press conference in March, but there’s a reason. 

When Holtmann was hired in March, most of the Blue Demons non-conference opponents were contractually locked in. Holtmann had some wiggle room in the schedule to add games, but most of these opponents were set up with Tony Stubblefield as the head coach because college schedules are typically made about a year in advance. 

“We are always going to want to challenge ourselves and have some fun and interesting non-conference matchups against other high major programs,” Holtmann told The DePaulia in September. “Scheduling is very important, and we want to provide as many home games as possible. We also want to provide opportunities for us to grow and play our young players.” 

Holtmann and DePaul attempted beefing up the schedule, trying to set up a home and home series with Arkansas and their new coach John Calipari starting this season, Holtmann said. Calipari has a close relationship with DePaul Athletics director DeWayne Peevy from their time together at the University of Kentucky. 

However, the schools could not make the logistics work for this season. 

Holtmann said after the Northwestern game on Dec. 21 that DePaul and Northwestern have plans to make the schools’ series a yearly event.

“It’s good for both places. When you have an ‘inner city’ kind of rivalry it’s on both teams to ratchet up the competitive level, and that’s on us right now,” Holtmann said.

Regardless of the opponent, DePaul still used the games as a way to create continuity. With 14 new players, that was easier said than done. 

Northwestern head coach Chris Collins is impressed with what Holtmann has done in a short time. 

“This is a much improved DePaul team, and the way he’s constructed this roster is actually pretty amazing,” Collins said. “The continuity they play with, the way they recruited, the high character guys they brought in, and they’re hard to play against. We haven’t really played a team that spreads you like that with their shooting, and they do a great job.”

Through Dec. 28 games, DePaul ranks 24 in the country in three-point percentage at 40.1%. 43.5% of their points have come from the three-point shots, ranking them third overall in the country. On the flip side, they are a bottom 10 team in the country in two-point shots with 40.3% of their total points. 

It is something that Collins said was challenging when they were scouting DePaul because of their only 11 games at the time.

“This was a tough prep, fortunately, they’ve played 11 games, ” Collins said. “It would have been a nightmare if we played them in the first week of the season.”

Even as DePaul got their game versus Northwestern within eight points in the final minutes before the Wildcats ran away with a 84-64 victory. 

DePaul was down 20-4 in the first seven minutes of the game. Another slow start out of the gate plagued them. Holtmann and his staff are still trying to find ways to correct those slow starts. 

In 12 games, DePaul has had five different starting lineups. Some of which have been due to injuries. 

“We’ve looked at changing the lineup a little bit,” Holtmann said. “I don’t think it’s been the case in every game …We’ve had some halves where we’ve started really well, but we’re gonna have to look at it and practice, see if we can simulate some things and be better. It’s the message of this team right now.”

DePaul has had three true road tests so far through the program’s first 13 games, playing games at Texas Tech, Northwestern, and Big East opponent St. Johns. They lost all three games. DePaul has not won a true road game since Dec. 3, 2022, when they beat Loyola-Chicago in Rogers Park. 

Holtmann hopes to use the program’s three true road tests as a learning experience, especially with more Big East conference games around the corner. 

“We want to just really focus on growing as much as we can,” Holtmann said. “I think we’ve established a style of play that we’re going to play. I think games like this can be a really positive thing, even though they can feel really, really bad in the moment.I would much rather play this game right now than play a team on the road that wasn’t going to be a tournament team, and I just think it can be really beneficial for us.” 

Holtmann even with a 9-4 start to the season knows that the schedule grows tougher as they get closer to Big East play with reigning champion UConn coming to town on New Year’s Day. 

“We just all really want to win,” DePaul forward NJ Benson said. “I feel like where people see us in our league kind of puts a chip on all of our shoulders, we want to do the best we can finish at the top.”

DePaul has still not won a Big East game since Jan. 18, 2023. A fact that Holtmann knows all too well. 

Holtmann wants to change that statistic as soon as possible. 

“We can be consumed with that as coaches, players and certainly fans, because they want it so badly,” Holtmann said. “I want it so badly for my AD, but it’s really my job to focus on how to solve some of these issues that we need to get better at and keep our guys focused on getting better and growing.” 

While acknowledging the urgency, Holtmann points to the importance of patience and continued development in the face of these obstacles.

“Right now, we’re trying to establish something in year one in terms of competitiveness and how we’ve played,” Holtmann said. “I think we’ve done that, and now we need to answer some of these challenges in front of us better.”

DePaul hosts reigning back-to-back champion UConn as they come to Wintrust Arena for a New Year’s day matinee.

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