Demons get coach his 400th career win
Oliver Purnell picked up his sixth win as DePaul's new head coach Wednesday night at the Allstate Arena.
But that's not why he was presented a celebratory cake after the Blue Demons hung on for a 71-62 decision over Florida Atlantic.
Still in the early stages of his 23rd season as a collegiate coach, Purnell picked up career win No. 400 thanks to DePaul freshman Cleveland Melvin's career-high 23 points and Tony Freeland's 10 in the second half, with 2 coming on a thunderous dunk.
Other than that, there won't much to remember about the milestone victory.
“I'm relieved to have it behind me,” said Purnell, who coached at Radford, Old Dominion, Dayton and Clemson before arriving at DePaul.
“Sometimes you can get stuck on the number — 300, 200, 99. It's a great Christmas present for me, but I didn't want to burden our players with that.”
After racing out to a 19-point lead with just more than five minutes left in the first half, it looked like the Blue Demons (6-6) were going to roll to their third straight win before hitting the Christmas break.
But the visiting Owls have a veteran coach of their own in Mike Jarvis, and they came in with telling road wins at Mississippi State and South Florida.
“We knew if we got them down they weren't going to go away,” Purnell said. “And that was the case.”
While outrebounding the bigger Demons 38-30, including a 15-7 edge on the offensive glass, Florida Atlantic (8-6) fought back in the second half and cut DePaul's lead to 63-60 when Dennis Mavin sank a pair of free throws with just less than two minutes to play.
“Coach always talks about when we play good teams like Florida Atlantic, they're not going to give in,” said senior guard Jimmy Drew (13 points). “We just kind of took it and then we pushed back.”
Actually, the Blue Demons made all of their free throws in the final minute, with Melvin, Jeremiah Kelly and Drew combining to go 6-for-6.
“Even though we didn't play perfect basketball in the second half, taking care of the basketball, rebounds, we shot free throws very well,” Purnell said. “That was the key to holding them off.”
After the holiday break, DePaul comes back with road games at Cincinnati (11-0) and No. 10 Georgetown (10-1) to open Big East play.
“I think it will be a great test for our guys to get on the road and see what we can do,” Purnell said. “If we take all of the lessons we've learned so far and just put them out there … if we do that, we'll be a nightmare.”