1974 DePaul Basketball: Ray Meyer Finds His Footing Again

The early part of the 1970s had been difficult ones for legendary DePaul basketball coach Ray Meyer. A tenure that saw him turn out consistently good teams over a career that started during World War II, had gone sour. The Blue Demons had consecutive losing seasons in 1970 and 1971. Over the next two seasons, they nudged over .500, but were not a serious contender to make the NCAA Tournament. The 1974 DePaul basketball team didn’t make the postseason, in an era where doing so was vastly more stringent than is the case today. But they continued the pattern of improvement, a pattern that eventually led the program to national prominence.

Bill Robinzine was an outstanding power forward with an NBA future ahead of him. Robinzine averaged 17 points/10 rebounds per game. Mike Gillespie, an exceptionally well-rounded player at the other forward spot, averaged 14 points/8 rebounds/5 assists. Greg Boyd and Jim Bocinsky, a pair of undersized guards, combined to average 30ppg. Sophomore center Andy Pancratz was good for eight rebounds a night.

Meyer’s team got a bad break when forward Matt Hicks, who could both score and rebound, became academically ineligible in the first half of the season and had to transfer. But DePaul had enough talent to be competitive.

A MANAGEABLE SCHEDULE WITH HARSH LESSONS

It didn’t hurt that the schedule was what we’ll politely call manageable. The Blue Demons beat teams like Rocky Mountain, Cal State, Brown, and Niagara. That was enough to keep them afloat as they lost by double digits to Northwestern early on. A three-game sequence saw them face a pretty good team in Tennessee, a respectable team in Utah State and a really good team in Providence. DePaul lost all three, and by an average margin of more than twenty points. They subsequently lost to a solid UMass squad.

Conversely, the two key rivals for the Blue Demons in this era–Marquette and Notre Dame—were both national contenders. DePaul hung in pretty well in a road trip to Milwaukee but lost 63-59 to Al McGuire’s Warriors. The loss at Notre Dame was more decisive, 101-72. In between, DePaul also lost to NCAA-bound Dayton, 85-71.

But even as the gap between the Blue Demons and NCAA Tournament-caliber teams was being shown, they were taking care of the games they should, which is the first step in a rebuilding process. DePaul beat teams like Xavier, Villanova and UW-Green Bay. They lost a rematch with Marquette, the one opponent they went home-and-home with, but turned around and beat a respectable Marshall team 83-80 to close the season.

A MODEST RECORD BUT A GROWTH YEAR

When all was said and done, DePaul finished 16–9. It wasn’t a season that grabbed national headlines, but it marked meaningful progress. The Blue Demons hovered around this level again in 1975, finishing 15–10. Then came the breakthrough—an NCAA Tournament bid in 1976. From there, the program took off, leading to a Final Four appearance in 1979 and reestablishing DePaul as a consistent national contender.