Two years ago, DePaul basketball was the punchline of the Big East — an 0-20 conference record, a program that had forgotten how to win, a fan base running on fumes and nostalgia. Then Chris Holtmann walked in, and the Blue Demons started climbing. Year one: 14-20 overall, 4-16 in the league, the greatest single-season KenPom improvement in the entire country. Year two: 16-16 overall, 8-12 in the Big East, a sixth-place finish — the second-most conference wins in program history and DePaul's best league finish since joining the Big East in 2005. The punchline is becoming a problem, and the Big East has noticed.
The 2025-26 season was a masterclass in Holtmann's program-building identity: defense first, toughness always. By season's end the Blue Demons owned the No. 32 defense in the country per KenPom — the fifth-best defensive efficiency in Big East play, nearly two points per 100 possessions stingier than Marquette. They swept Creighton for the first time in school history. They got better as the year went along, climbing from No. 137 in KenPom in early December to No. 99 by April. The reason they finished 8-12 instead of 12-8? The worst offense in the league. Fix the scoring, and this team is a genuine Big East middle-class menace.
The turnaround has extended way beyond the standings. DePaul has recorded the highest attendance growth in the Big East under Holtmann, including a 118 percent increase in student attendance. The program returned to national postseason play in 2024-25 for the first time since 2018-19. And in late September 2026, the university made its commitment official: Holtmann signed a contract extension through 2031, aligning him with president Rob Manuel and athletic director DeWayne Peevy in a full institutional bet on sustained success. 'At this stage of our growth, continuity matters,' Peevy said. The message to recruits, the portal and the league is unmistakable: DePaul is all in.
To understand why this matters, you have to understand the history. DePaul is not some plucky upstart — it's a blue blood in hibernation. Ray Meyer's Blue Demons made the 1979 Final Four. The program won the 1945 NIT, when the NIT was the big one. George Mikan, Mark Aguirre, Terry Cummings, Quentin Richardson — the alumni list reads like a basketball hall of fame wing. But the program hasn't made the NCAA tournament since 2004, a drought that has now stretched past two decades and through three home arenas, from the Horizon to the Allstate Arena to Wintrust Arena, the 10,387-seat South Loop showpiece that opened in 2017 and is finally starting to feel like a real home-court advantage.
Holtmann, now 30-36 at DePaul and 281-207 overall, built his reputation at Butler and Ohio State on retention and development — teams that kept their players, got older together and defended like hell. The portal era has made that harder everywhere, and DePaul's 2026-27 roster reflects the new math: just one returning starter and seven returners overall, 35.5 percent of minutes back, but the nation's 28th-ranked transfer class and a freshman group that gives the staff real clay to mold. The season opens November 2 against West Georgia at Wintrust, and the nonconference slate is the runway for another Big East climb.
The departures tell the story of modern roster construction: Brandon Maclin, Kaleb Banks and C.J. Gunn graduated; RJ Smith, Isaiah Medina, Ilija Milijasevic, Khaman Maker, Jeremy Lorenz and N.J. Benson transferred out. What's left is Holtmann's kind of team — or at least, the raw material for one. The formula that took DePaul from 0-20 to sixth place doesn't change: defend at an elite level, rebound, take care of the ball, and find just enough shooting to let the defense win games.
The 2026-27 outlook is the most anticipated DePaul season in a generation, and the goal is the one that has haunted Lincoln Park since 2004: the NCAA tournament. The Big East remains a gauntlet — UConn, St. John's, Creighton, Marquette, Villanova, Xavier — but the Blue Demons just proved they can sweep Creighton and defend with anyone in the league. The ascension is real. The destination is March. And for the first time in twenty years, DePaul basketball doesn't feel like a nostalgia act — it feels like a program.
None of this was supposed to happen this fast. When Holtmann took the job in 2024, the reasonable expectation was a slow, painful climb out of the Big East basement — maybe a few more wins, maybe a little momentum, maybe a foundation for someone else to finish. Instead, DePaul won the most conference games in program history within two years, swept Creighton, built a top-35 defense and got its coach extended through 2031. The 2026-27 Blue Demons carry the weight of real expectations for the first time in twenty years, and that's the surest sign the turnaround is real: nobody expects anything from a punchline.
