Post Game - DePaul vs Vanderbilt

DePaul University gives up a twelve point halftime lead to lose to #21 Vanderbilt 91-85 behind 19 points from Andrew Ogilvy and 18 from Alan Metcalfe. DePaul were led by Draelon Burns with 24 points. Chalk Talk analyzes how DePaul University faired in terms of the Three Keys Of The Game...

#1 CUT OFF THE HEAD, AND THE BODY WILL DIE!

The point of this thread was for DePaul to contain Jermaine Beal, who in fact was held in check, only tallying 4 assists and scoring only 2 points. But the defense forgot about freshmen back-up point guard Keegan Bell, who had the best game of his career with 12 points, 8 assists, and hitting 4-of-8 from the arc.

Overall, DePaul did contain the main guards, and there probably is not a scouting report on Bell, who's output was very out of the ordinary.

#2 HELP FROM THE WEAKSIDE AND ROTATION IS NEEDED!

In the first half DePaul did an amazing job fronting the post, rotating on defense, hedging screens, and challenging all shots. DePaul held one of the most effective offenses in the country to 30 first half points, and totaled 11 steals and 10 blocks for the game. Poscic did an excellent job fronting the likes of Ogilvy, Koshwal played excellent help defense, and our perimeter defenders did a great job on challenging outside shots, as well as play the passing lanes aggressively.

The second half was a different story. Instead of fronting the post, the defense played behind the likes of Ogilvy and Metcafle, allowing both to get off hook shot after hook shot, where Ogilvy ended the game with 19 points and Metcalfe with 18. Both had monster second halfs, and it was due to a change in the defensive strategy/change. This made the defense sag, allowing the likes of Bell and Shan Foster to hit from the outside, where Bell was 4-of-8 and Foster was 5-of-9. The defense also sagged off of the bigs in the high post and perimeter, where Metcalfe hit 3-of-4 three pointers.

DePaul went from being active, alert, and smart in the first half to being lazy and unintentive in the second half. This was one of the main reasons for the lose.

#3 WORK THE BALL INSIDE OUT!

Looking at the numbers, it was the best game in terms of getting the ball into the post, where Koshwal, Green, and Poscic combined for 25 shots, hitting on 12. Koshwal and Poscic both had their best games as Blue Demons, Koshwal having 21 points, and Poscic having 8 points, 4 rebounds, and 3 blocks. Add to that three Dar Tucker dunks that were inside, and DePaul had the concept going...but that was only for the first half and part of the second. Then the Demons fell in typical fashion. No penetration, dribbling the ball out, and taking ill-advised outside shots made DePaul ineffective in the second half and overtime, not using their bigs one bit. To show their importance, DePaul's bigs got 9 of the 22 assists, and if you put Clarke in the mix, you are talking 14 of 22.

When the bigs don't touch the ball, good things are not going to happen.

CLOSING THOUGHTS…

In the Closing Thoughts, I stated that DePaul needed to stay between ball and man, as well as play great help defense...you cannot afford to lose your man in an offense such as this. DePaul followed this thoroughly in the first half, but when the game counted, they lost their man countless times, which costed DePaul the game.

DePaul hosts UIC at the Allstate at 7:30 on Saturday.