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In their season opener and inaugural game in their new stadium, things didn’t go exactly as planned for the DePaul Blue Demons. To their credit, they were able to stick with a good Notre Dame Fighting irish team for much of the first half. The second half was a much different story however. DePaul showed it’s youth and inexperience in the last 20 minutes and crumbled as a veteran Fighting Irish team pulled away. Behind the play Bonzie Colson, Matt Farrell and T.J. Gibbs, Notre Dame ended up beating DePaul 72-56 to spoil their opener at Wintrust Arena. It was a tough loss, but it hopefully it will also serve as a learning experience for this team.
Their opponents Monday evening will be the Delaware State Hornets who are based out of the Mid-Eastern Conference. They started off their season on a positive note, beating Cairn University 71-50. It was a relatively easy for the Hornets against their Division 3 opponents. DePaul will be the first of many tough road tests the Hornets will undergo. They also face Nebraska and Pittsburgh in their nonconference schedule. After a tough ending to their season last year (they lost four of their last five games), Delaware State will look for more consistency this time around.
After this contest, DePaul will travel to Champaign to play Illinois in the Gavitt Games before facing off against the #2 ranked team in the country in Michigan State in the PK80 tournament.
How to watch, stream, or listen
Game Time: 8 p.m. ET
TV: Fox Sports 2 (Lisa Byington, LaChina Robinson)
Radio: DePaul (WSCR 670 AM) || Delaware State (N/A)
Streaming: Fox Sports Go
Gamblin’ Odds
Odds: DePaul enters this game as a 22-point favorite (via OddsShark)
Record ATS: DePaul (0-1) || Delaware State (0-0)
O/U: O/U is not available for this game
Last Time They Met
This is a historic event, as this game will be the first meeting ever between the two programs.
3 Things to Watch For
A repeat performance from Devin Gage?
Despite the loss, point guard Devin Gage had a fantastic performance against Notre Dame. Matched up against Farrell, one of the top players at his position in the country, Gage was able to hold his own and led DePaul in scoring in the first half. He ended up scoring 10 points and nabbing three steals in the contest. It was a solid first performance from Gage in his sophomore campaign. This matchup against Delaware State will be where we will see if he can keep up this performance of at least being a decent contributor on this Blue Demon team.
Who will step up for Delaware State?
This is a much different Delaware State team than a year ago. Artem Tavakalyn, who lead them with 18 points in their opening day win, only averaged six per game last year. A lot of their top scorers are gone and will likely have to rely on Tavakalyn to pull off some repeat performances if they want to grab some wins this year. But Delaware State will have problems finding consistent scoring if that isn’t the case. Right now we are only one game into the season, so we can’t make concrete statements about who will be “the guy” on offense this year for them.
Better three-point shooting from DePaul
After going 5 for 22 against Notre Dame it would be a very easy thing to say DePaul needs to work on their three-point shooting, so that’s exactly what I’m going to do. It was a really poor performance from the Blue Demons from beyond the arc. Against top teams, they will have to use it as a weapon to stay in (or even win) games. It wasn’t there against Notre Dame, and when the Irish started hitting their own three’s, it was game over. It’s good to see DePaul try and make the three-pointer a big part of their game, they just have to execute.