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Imrem: Can any coach make DePaul matter again?

Amid March Madness, DePaul men's basketball remains mired in local apathy.

Ask 10 people on the street whether they care that the Blue Demons just lost another men's basketball head coach.

Maybe one-half of one of them would nod yes.

Ask 10 other people whether they know who the most recent DePaul men's basketball head coach was.

Maybe five would say women's coach Doug Bruno.

Ask 10 others whether they could pick Oliver Purnell out of a DePaul men's basketball media guide.

Maybe all 10 of them would express shock that DePaul still plays men's basketball.

You get the idea. DePaul needs a coach who can make it matter again around here … assuming such a person exists.

DePaul has drifted so far off the college-basketball landscape locally, much less nationally, that the Demons might not be able to draw attention by naming Will Farrell their next coach.

Purnell resigned the position over the weekend, saying it was best for him and his family to move on.

Trust me, I have tried to figure out why the DePaul men's program isn't relevant anymore on this crowded sports landscape.

DePaul has been important to me since as a kid I rode the bus to games played in the old Alumni Hall.

“The little school under the ‘L' tracks” was fun for me to cover when it joined the national elite in the early 1980s.

The Demons still were compelling after moving on to fill the Rosemont Horizon — now Allstate Arena — with big games against big teams featuring big coaches.

So, yeah, it's bothersome to me that DePaul men's basketball now resides in an abyss.

The easy explanation is that athletic director Jean Lenti Ponsetto is at fault, but easy isn't always correct.

Ponsetto must bear a share of the blame, and DePaul alums, boosters and fans are quick to assess it.

But something else must be wrong at DePaul, too, because Ponsetto has made credible coaching hires.

Before coming to Lincoln Park, Purnell and predecessor Jerry Wainwright were known as handymen who repaired leaky programs.

Wainwright was fired after failing to turn around DePaul and Purnell resigned.

So Ponsetto did hire what seemed to be the right people, yet DePaul basketball still was the wrong place.

So what's wrong? Is it a lack of resources from the university? Does the problem go higher than the athletic department?

Doesn't appear so. DePaul lured Purnell with a lofty salary. On his way out, he said the school “provided complete support.”

DePaul might already have identified the problem: Allstate Arena is so far from the Lincoln Park campus.

A new arena is scheduled to open near McCormick Place in a couple of years … perhaps not the best site but supposedly better than Rosemont.

Except that throughout the 1980s and some of the 1990s, mighty good DePaul teams drew mighty big crowds in the suburbs.

But now DePaul again will have to try to to hire a head coach with a winning plan and charisma to go with it.

I attended the news conferences introducing Wainwright and then Purnell because back then it seemed to matter who DePaul's men's basketball coach was.

Will I attend the next news conference for DePaul's next coach? Maybe, maybe not.

The event will matter to me, but DePaul men's basketball doesn't matter to enough Chicago sports fans anymore.

mimrem@dailyherald.com

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