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Team: DePaul Blue Demons
2025-26 Record: 16-16, 8-12 Big East
2025-26 Big East Finish: Sixth, one game behind Creighton and one game ahead of a Marquette/Butler/Providence tie for seventh.
Final 2025-26 Computer Rankings
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NET: #101
KenPom.com: #99
BartTorvik.com: #97
Postseason: The Blue Demons called it a day after taking a 64-56 loss to Georgetown in the 6/11 game in the first round of the Big East tournament.
Notable Departures: Here’s some great news for DePaul! Four of the five rotation guys that they’ve lost were at the end of their four years of eligibility anyway. Sure, two of them — CJ Gunn and NJ Benson — were DePaul’s top two scorers last season, and Brandon Maclin came in fourth on the stat sheet. All three guys averaged over 10 points a game, led by 13.1 from Gunn. Losing them all is not great even if you knew it was coming, and that’s before I point out that Benson, Maclin, and Gunn were, in that order, DePaul’s top rebounders, too. Maclin was second on the team in assists per game as well, so yes, knowing you’re going to lose those guys because it’s their time is better than seeing them transfer out…. but having to replace that much production is a problem.
Kaleb Banks is the fourth guy out of eligibility that’s leaving, and he was a perfectly dependable rotation guy, stats-wise. 5.6 points per game, 2.5 rebounds, 36% three-point shooting in 16.2 minutes on average…. although his minutes were drifting more towards the single digits in the back half of the season.
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The last guy that DePaul is losing had a bigger role than Banks. RJ Smith is one of four guys — Benson and Gunn are two more — to appear in all 32 games last season, and he started 23 times as well, picking up the starting job in December and never letting it go. He ended up averaging 6.6 points, 2.4 rebounds, and 2.4 assists, which is really solid stuff. He’s off to UC Santa Barbara for his final year of eligibility.
Notable Returners: The definition of notable starts…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/2026-27-big-east-men-144500759.html
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Publish date : 2026-08-25 14:45:00
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