DePaul’s Chris Holtmann is losing — a lot — but ‘spirits haven’t dampened’

Look, we’ve seen this before.

Over. And over. And over.

Is anyone surprised DePaul’s men’s basketball team is off to an 11-12 start — with a brutal Big East record of 2-10 — in its first season on coach Chris Holtmann’s watch?

With all due respect to Holtmann, who has guided seven teams to the NCAA Tournament and won coach of the year honors in three different conferences, this is just what DePaul does. This is what DePaul has been for what feels too damn much like forever.

Before Holtmann, nine straight Blue Demons teams finished last or next-to-last in the Big East. No team has reached the Big Dance since 2004. And last season’s worst-ever squad became — unthinkably, if we were talking about any other school — the first Big East team ever to go 0-20 in conference play.

As if Holtmann, no matter how good he might be, was going to sashay into the midst of all that and deliver an instant winner? Please.

“My spirits haven’t been dampened,” he told the Sun-Times after practice Tuesday. “It’s not always fun, but I went into it clear-eyed.”

What’s good, then, about joining the flaw firm of Wainwright, Purnell, Leitao and Stubblefield? Why do it? Why try? Why bother?

“Because I’m more convinced than I’ve ever been that we’ll get this program turned around,” Holtmann said. “I don’t know the timing, but I am 100% convinced we’ll be able to do that.”

It has been a rough go for the 53-year-old and his team since a 7-0 start that didn’t end up meaning a whole lot even though it matched brand-new coach Ray Meyer’s 7-0 start in — whoa — 1942.

In early December, DePaul took its 7-0 mark to Texas Tech (currently ranked 13th in the country) and promptly fell behind
17-2. Blowout? No. The Blue Demons tied the game with a 19-4 run, climbed into it again with an 11-2 run but just ran out of steam. Still, it was a strong showing.

But then the Blue Demons blew an eight-point lead over the final 3:37 of their Big East opener against Providence and lost in overtime. Later, they blew a 19-point second-half lead at Seton Hall and — after failing to foul while ahead by three points late and instead allowing a game-tying triple in the closing seconds of regulation — lost again in OT to fall to 0-5 in the league.

Those were punishing blows for an essentially all-new group, and the gut punches didn’t stop there. In mid-January, Holtmann’s team led No. 7 Marquette by four points in the final minute at Wintrust Arena only to lose — again — in overtime.

“I hate this for our fans,” Holtmann said then, the league mark at 0-7. “I’m just telling you this thing is going to get flipped. I guarantee it.”

A win finally came in the next game, 73-68 at Georgetown.

But last week at big, bad UConn, the two-time-defending national champion, was another one that broke the skin and left a wound. Improbably, DePaul built a 14-point lead in the first half and still was out in front midway through the second half. What an upset story that was brewing in Hartford. Such news it would’ve made; such progress it would’ve represented. Alas: Nope again.

A few of those disappointments ate at Holtmann as much as he would let them. Instead, it helped to try to imagine sitting with his staff and program — someday, no telling when — and watching a Selection Sunday show. The name “DePaul” appearing on the bracket . . . the Blue Demons leaping to their feet as one . . . long-suffering fans rejoicing.

“I’ll do everything in my power and in my staff’s power to make it happen,” he said. “I believe we’ll get there.”

Last time out, against Seton Hall at Wintrust on Sunday, the Blue Demons avenged their collapse against the Pirates with a 74-57 romp. It was DePaul’s largest margin of victory in a Big East game in six seasons.

A sign of better times to come? Well, maybe. Certain opposing coaches have gone out of their way to encourage Holtmann that there’s something about DePaul basketball on his watch that just feels kind of different.

After the first of DePaul’s two losses to UConn, Huskies coach Danny Hurley told Holtmann in the handshake line, “Hey, man, keep doing what you’re doing — you’re going to get this program flipped.” Marquette’s Shaka Smart called the job he was doing “phenomenal.” Hurley again, after the rematch, grabbed Holtmann’s assistant Jack Owens aside and made the point that, indeed, things were moving in a good direction.

Even Georgetown’s Ed Cooley, despite losing to Holtmann, was thoughtful enough to text how impressed he was by the way the Blue Demons were coming around.

Hey, that’s something.

“I think they all can feel the way in which we’re competing,” Holtmann said. “They take note of it. I don’t think coaches say that to just say it.”

Holtmann will take it.