Evidently, it truly is Believeland. The Cleveland State Vikings gave the DePaul Blue Demons quite a scare, ultimately losing 73-65. It was a bizarre game. DePaul turned the ball over 26 times, shot less than 50% from the field and 21% from the 3-point line, but…….DePaul made free-throws, 26 of them!
Fortunately, Cleveland State turned the ball over more than normal to the tune of 29 times. Normally, the Vikes turn the ball over at an incredible rate of 25% of possessions, while today they turned the ball over 36% of the time. So that’s good??
The State of Cleveland shot better than normal from 2 point land (44% normally 48.8% today) and 3 point land (23.6% normally 33.3% today), but thankfully, they shot like crap from the free-throw line 56.5% when they normally shoot 67.2%.
If you tuned in early, the game went exactly as expected, with the Demons going on a quick 9-0 run after 5 minutes. I was already having dreams of being up forty and getting a little excited about seeing some extended time from our non-starters. I was talking trash to my son, my dog was begging to be petted, so I was indulging her. Everything was going great.
Although there were a plethora of turnovers, the lead kept expanding, reaching a high point of 16 with just under 1:30 left in the half.
From then on, it was a slow march to the end. It was mildly stressful with never the thought of the Demons actually losing.
So what was the problem? The damn diamond beserker press. It has becoming abundantly clear, that our guards do not like pressure. Buffalo and now Cleveland St. asked us to increase our tempo and we obliged them with a deluge of turnovers. Even when we did break the unholy press, our big men, would make a bad pass, lose the ball, miss a layup, or charged into our old friend Big Al Eichelberger.
Jaylen Butz, Paul Reed, Romeo Weems, Charlie Moore, and Devin Gage all had 4 turnovers. Only Jalen Coleman-Lands had more assists than turnovers. It was an awful game to watch. It hurt my feelings. Best summed up by the following tweet which was inspired by a tweet by @HSS1DPU:
Tonight performance. Turn up the volume. #DePaul #dpubb pic.twitter.com/i3OHs8yPXW
— Lazybluedemon (@lazybluedemon) December 19, 2019
Alright, let’s get to the nitty-gritty.
