Villanova Basketball 2022-23 Game Preview: DePaul Blue Demons

Vilanova is heading to the windy city to prepare for Tuesday night’s matchup against the DePaul Blue Demons.

The Wildcats have been on a rough stretch lately, losing 3 of their last 4 games, but those losses were against quality teams like UConn, Marquette and most recently Xavier. . They’ve been competitive in all three of his, but one fan’s moral victory is another’s “look at all the missed winning opportunities.”

Villanova will go 8-8 and 2-3 in conference play.

DePaul hasn’t had much luck lately either. Overall, the Blue Demons are 7-9, losing five of their last six games. They are 1-4 so far playing in the Big East and, like Villanova, their only conference victory so far is against Georgetown.

Tip-off is scheduled for Tuesday night at 9 PM ET.

impact transfer

After major departures from the likes of scoring machine Javon Freeman-Liberty and David Jones, who is currently at St. John’s, the Blue Demons have replenished their roster on the transfer portal.

Umoja Gibson (Oklahoma), Eral Penn (LIU) and Da’Sean Nelson (Kilgore College to JUCO) joined the team this offseason and made an immediate impact.

Javan Johnson, a midseason addition from Iowa State during the 2021-22 season, is enjoying his career year and having time to familiarize himself with the program certainly helped him.

Johnson leads the team with 15.9 points and 4.8 rebounds per game. Overall, he shoots 43.4% of the time, and he has the team’s best shots from deep at 41.7%. He’s a respected three-point his shooter and dangerous when he gets to move. He has made more than four of his 3-pointers in his five occasions, but since the dawn of the new year he has been chilling. In the last two games, he’s only shot 1-for-14 combined, but in the final game of 2022 against Georgetown, he made his 5-for-7 efficient from the deep. bottom.

Gibson is a valuable two-way guard, contributing scoring punches and the facilitator needed on the floor. Gibson is averaging 15.5 points, 5.1 assists and 2.3 steals per game. Gibson is another player who has had one ups and downs. He had 31 points, 5 assists and 4 steals against Georgetown, but then disappeared in a loss to Providence. He recently bounced back with a solid 16 points, 8 assists, 2 steals and 3 turnovers against Butler.

The 6-foot-6 Penn is a tough rebounder, leading DePaul with 7.3 boards per game. While DePaul doesn’t have to carry as many points as he did in his LIU days, he still gets 10.3 points per game at 47.0% of his clips.

Finally, Nelson is a 6-foot-8 forward to watch. The Blue Demons have also struggled with size and he’s an energy guy off the bench, he’s averaging 9.3 points and his 5.3 boards, DePaul’s Yol played a key role while his Anay recovered from a leg injury. fulfilled. The Blue Demons have only two players in their rotation, Nelson and Anay.

Anei has missed most of the season due to injury, but has returned in the last four games. He has never lighted out, but he has a season-best score of 14 on 6-of-8 shooting. This is the most points he has scored since 11 January 2022.

Time to shoot or sleep on the street

It seems that nothing is guaranteed, but this is a very winnable game for “Cats”.

DePaul enables opponents to shoot 36.3% from deep (299th in the nation). The Cats have had no right-out shooting performance, and as a team he has shot more than 33.3% from 3, the only time in his last five games that he has shot more than 33.3%, but this one brings back that shooting stroke and makes it far. This is your chance to regain your confidence from a distance.

Whether it’s Cam Whitmore putting together another takeover game, Brendan Hausen sinking the Blue Demons, or someone else leading a three-shot gun, “Cats take advantage of the Blue Demons’ weak perimeter defenses.” is needed.

An aggressive attacking style of play can draw many fouls and free points, even if the Cats can’t capitalize on attacking from long range. DePaul ranks him 290th in his rate of free throws allowed, according to KenPom. Unfortunately for the Blue Demons, the Wildcats are more than happy to make their opponents pay to get to the line.