After the terrible, awful loss to Buffalo on Sunday, DePaul hosts the UIC Flames at Wintrust Arena. The Blue Demons hope to get back to their winning ways, as do their neurotic fans. This will be the sixth consecutive season that these teams have played. In the 10 overall meetings, DePaul holds a 8-2 record, with UIC’s latest win in December 2016.
The Setup
The game will be at Wintrust Arena on Saturday, December 14th at 1PM. The game will be on Fox Sports, Channel 237 on Comcast, and 670 AM.
Fun Facts About UIC
The University of Illiniois-Chicago basketball team has only been playing Division one basketball since the 1981-1982 season. Under Jimmy Collins, they went to the NCAA tournament 3 times, most recently in 2004.
Sad But True
UIC has been to the NCAA tournament more times than DePaul since 1994.
Member of the Horizon League
The league that brought America Butler, has had UIC as a member since 2001. Before that period of time, the Flames were in the Midwest City Conference together. MWC was a pretty wild conference. Butler, Xavier, Loyola Chicago, and Saint Louis all were in this conference. Then you had the others, Oral Roberts of Tulsa, Evansville (who beat Kentucky this year), Oklahoma City, and Detroit Mercy. Wow, the current haves and have nots are off the charts.
Oklahoma City fell out of Divison One at the end of 1985. Evansville haven’t made it to the NCAA tournament since 1999. Oral Roberts hasn’t been relevant since 2007, when a member of the Summit Conference, which they are again members. Great coach name from 1983-84, Dick Acres. He could’ve been an excellent real state agent. Just think of his slogans, both appropriate and inappropriate. Do it, you will thank yourself later.
Illinois’s Largest Dental School
Odds are, when you are getting a cavity fixed, your dentist is a UIC alumni. Pro tip, don’t bring up DePaul kicking the Flames ass at your next dental visit. You might just get a root canal that is unnecessary.
33,000 Students
Unfortunately for Steve McClain, almost none of them know how to play basketball, including a couple of his starting five.
Tale of the Tape
DePaul Crushes the Tale of the Tape
When you break it down this way, DePaul is going to romp. Two of the categories that UIC won in the tale of the tape, related to Free-Throws. News flash, The Flames suck at Free-Throws as well. The only other advantage that they have is basically a push on Defensive steals in compared to the Demons offensive steals.
You can see that UIC turns the ball over at one of the highest rates in the country, while DePaul is one of the best to generate turnovers. Huge advantage for the Demons.
If DePaul is not shooting well, the team should still get plenty of offensive rebounds, since UIC is in the bottom 16% at defensive rebounding and DePaul is in the top 16% of offensive rebounding.
Who Can Hurt the Demons
I want to point out that Australian, Jamie Ahale, could really do bad things to DePaul. On the year his is shooting 42% from 3 point land. Attention Dave Leitao, Jamie Ahale can shoot. 6-10 from 3 against Purdue Fort Wayne.
23 points against San Diego (the Catholic School, not the heathen State school). On 3-3 from 2, 2-4 from 3, and 11-11 from the free-throw line. Jumpin’ Jesus.
Looking back at old scores, it really appears that UIC have just started to feature him, so beware Coach!
Michael Diggins, a small forward, went off in the last game against Purdue- Fort Wayne with 25 points on 7-7 from 2 and 3-4 from 3 point range.
In general, the Flames are not impressive offensively. Using kenpom.com, the Flames have 1 player, Ahale, who has an Offensive rating above 100. 100 is supposed to be average.
Two of their starters have awesome names, but not awesome game.
Tarkus Ferguson, their point guard, has an Offensive rating of 79.9! He is a high usage guy, who shoots 48% for 2s and 21% for 3s. Pretty good at assists.
Godwin Boahen, their shooting guard, has an Offensive rating of 80.4! He is a high usage guy, who shoots 31% for 2s and 29% for 3s.
What is Going to Happen Saturday?
My best guess is that the Blue Demons are going to come out hungry and angry. At least, I know that I would come out with fire in my eyes.
If they do, they should be able to lock down on defense and gets some transition baskets, and hopefully build an unassailable lead by half-time.
Let’s Go!
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