Lancers head to Chicago for quarterfinal match up with DePaul

LancersBlog
LancersBlog
Published in
5 min readMar 24, 2019

When: March 25, 8 PM
Where: McGrath-Phillips Arena (Chicago, IL)
TV: NBC Sports Chicago+ (FoxSports Go App)
Line: Longwood +15

LancersBlog Richmond Watch Party

After a 90–68 victory over Southern Miss on Wednesday night Longwood will look to keep on marching Monday night when they take on Big East foe DePaul in Chicago in the College Basketball Invitational quarterfinals. The Blue Demons are coming off a 100–86 win over Central Michigan in the opening round of the CBI.

A couple of minor storylines that will set the stage for Monday evening are the familiar face of Dave Leitao, Virginia’s former head coach, and the location of Monday’s game Leitao is back for his second stint with the Blue Demons and has struggled four years in with a 103–114 mark. This season DePaul since 2007 (sound familiar) under Leitao and finished eighth in the Big East. They came into the CBI six of their final eight games.

The other storyline is that DePaul has been booted from their brand-new arena, due to a private event, for a retro return to the McGrath-Phillips Arena. The 3,000 seat arena will remind you of Willett Hall and was the home for DePaul during some minor games when AllState Arena wasn’t available, or they didn’t need a large arena, from 2000 to 2017.

How about basketball?

The first thing you’ll notice about DePaul is that they play a really tight rotation. The Blue Demons usually only go 7–8 deep and the undisputed leader of the team is Max Strus who plays over 36 minutes per game. Strus is a 6'6 guard who dropped 33 points in the CBI opener against Central Michigan. On the year the senior is averaging 19.3 points, 6 rebounds, 2.4 assists. He’ll be a unique defensive challenge for Griff Aldrich’s game planning.

Joining Strus in the backcourt is another big senior guard in 6'6 Eli Cain. Cain averaged 13.4 points, 3.2 rebounds, and 3.4 assists per outing this year and scored 20 against the Chippewas on Wednesday. Strus and Cain will play off the ball while 6'2 Devin Gage will be the primary ball-handler for the Blue Demons. Gage is a sophomore who has averaged over 9 points and 4 assists this year for Leitao.

The story with all three of these guards, and the Blue Demons in general, is that they turn the ball over quite a bit. The starting backcourt averages 6.8 turnovers per game and as a team DePaul turns the ball over on about one out of every five possessions.

In the frontcourt, Paul Reed and Femi Olujobi round out the key players for the Blue Demons. Reed is a 6'9 sophomore who just posted a 17 point, 10 rebound double-double in the first game of the CBI and Olujobi, also 6'9, posted nearly 13 points and 5 rebounds his senior year in Chicago.

So the brief scouting report on the Blue Demons:

  • They can really fill it up with five skilled scorers and have scored 80 or more points in ten games this season.
  • They are one of the nation’s oldest (81st) and tallest (31st) teams.
  • They can struggle with turnovers and are susceptible to steals.
  • Not a ton of threes, ranks among the nations’ lowest in the number of threes they take as a percentage of their field goals.
  • 6–13 if you can keep them below 75 points.

About the Defense

You’ll see DePaul rely on a little bit of zone against the Lancers perimeter-based offense. While DePaul does struggle against the three ball, you need to make sure your shot is clicking because they are one of the best teams in the country in limiting offensive rebounds. Teams take and make a lot of threes against the Blue Demons, and that will no doubt be the strategy for a Lancers team that hit 18 from downtown against Southern Miss.

Let’s Go Lancers!

Longwood comes into Chicago a 15 point underdog and will no doubt need another transcendent performance to get to the CBI semifinals. As Griff Aldrich extends his practice time with this team, it was interesting to see how tight the Longwood rotation got last week. Pernell Adgei did not play and Gus Okafor and Sean Flood only combined for 12 minutes. Look for Griff to keep another 7-man rotation in Chicago on Monday night.

Shabooty Phillips, who had 19 points, 7 boards, and 5 assists against Southern Miss, will need to have another big night. The other premier threat that continues to emerge for Longwood is Jaylon Wilson. Wilson had one of the more efficient nights you’ll see last week posting 23 points on a 9-for-15 night from the field and also added 8 rebounds.

The unique challenge for Longwood is going to be keeping pace with the Blue Demons while trying to conquer so much height. The Lancers have struggled to keep up with some high octane teams this year, Hampton, for example, and have not seen a team with so many big guards. LU has skilled rebounding guards, but the challenge will come out on the perimeter with Wilson and JaShaun Smith guarding Cain and Strus.

Damarion Geter, Spencer Franklin, and Jordan Cintron will obviously have their hands full as well and will have to continue to play with a high level of poise in the CBI.

Monday’s game will be aired locally in Chicago on NBC Sports Chicago Plus and will be available nationally via the Fox Sports Go app.

Other CBI action on Monday night includes:

Utah Valley at South Florida
Coastal Carolina at West Virginia
Brown at Loyola Marymount

The semifinals hosts and match up will be redrawn after the results on Monday’s games.

Longwood Richmond Area Watch Party

Time: 7:30–10:30 PM
Location: Champion Brewing Company (401 E Grace Street | Street Parking)

Join us at Champion Brewing Company on Monday night for a Longwood Watch Party as your Lancers take on DePaul in the CBI Quarterfinals. We’ll have the private area upstairs with the game streaming live. Longwood fans can enjoy a $10 burger + brew special. Beer, wine, cider, and non-alcoholic drinks will be available.

Food Menu

More Info

--

--