At a press conference following the DePaul Blue Demons’ 62-51 win over Marquette, head coach Chris Holtmann shared a word the team uses in the locker room, at home and on the road: “response.”

He later elaborated on what that means: “It’s really critical in sports and in life. How you respond to things really determines a lot … You show good examples of it. You show poor examples of it. 

“You preach it. You preach it. You preach it again.” 

Ending Big East Conference play on a two-game losing streak to Villanova and Butler, the Blue Demons’ response to their defeats will be key to their success in the men’s basketball Big East tournament at Madison Square Garden in New York City from March 11-14. 

The Blue Demons find themselves with the sixth seed, the highest in program history. They will play against the No. 11 seed, the Georgetown Hoyas on March 11 at 8 p.m. CT. In their last matchup, the Blue Demons fell 70-61 on the road. 

To rebuild their momentum following the two-game skid as they head into the tournament, senior forward NJ Benson highlighted watching film in a postgame press conference after their  81-71 loss to Butler in the regular season finale.

“Coach has started to show us a lot of response clips in the room — tight huddles and responding to bad calls or missed plays and diving on the floor, just the plays that win you games,” Benson said. “We haven’t been doing a lot of since Marquette.” 

At the tournament, he said the team will let the Butler loss go and focus on one game at a time. 

“Just win this game, think about the next later,” Benson said. 

The Blue Demons also held a player-only meeting in response to the recent losses. The idea came from senior guard Brandon Maclin, who wanted his teammates to spend time together and talk about the past couple of games. 

Benson noted that some tears even fell at the meeting because of how much they care.  

“I just feel like we haven’t had that same bite since Marquette,” Benson said to the media before the tournament on March 9.  

Holtmann applauded his team’s resilience.  

“They keep coming,” Holtmann said after the second win against Marquette. “They don’t have much quit in them.”

Assistant coach Bryan Mullins thinks this attitude reflects Holtmann’s personality.

“Coach has done a great job, kind of instilling that mindset, instilling that will into this group throughout the summer, throughout the fall, throughout the season, being consistent every single day in practice,” Mullins said before the March 4 matchup against Villanova. 

Mullins described how the team members push each other and remain competitive and consistent in practices, which translates to the court.

“So when things don’t go our way for a five-minute stretch, or we have a couple bad possessions in the game, the guys have been able to respond,” he said.

“Response” remains a theme going into the Big East Tournament. 

“I think our response has to be really good, especially in Madison Square,” Benson said.

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