1986 marked the second year of Joey Meyer’s tenure at DePaul, since taking over from his father, the legendary Ray. After seven years running with the national elite at the end of Ray’s career, Joey’s first year of 1985 was a step back, as they scraped into the NCAA Tournament and lost in the first […]
It was a new era for DePaul basketball in 1985. The legendary Ray Meyer had stepped down after over four decades on the sidelines and handed the reins to his son Joey. Meyer the Younger was taking over a program that was on a high. DePaul had run with the national elite for the past […]
Ray Meyer was an iconic figure in college basketball. He had been on the sidelines at DePaul since 1942 and guided the program through peaks, valleys, and a changing landscape for over four decades. Some of his best teams came at the end of his career, from the Final Four trip of 1979 to a […]
After running with the elites of college basketball for five straight years, DePaul stepped back and retooled in 1983. A program that had reached the Final Four in 1979, and been a #1 seed in 1980, 1981 and 1982 (albeit subject to serious March disappointment), failed to make the NCAA Tournament in ’83, as veteran […]
DePaul basketball was on a high coming into the 1982 season, yet also a program with a lot to prove. They had made the Elite Eight in 1978, the Final Four in 1979, and went to both the 1980 and 1981 NCAA Tournament ranked #1 in the country. But those latter two years ended with […]
DePaul followed up their Final Four run of 1979 with a magnificent regular season in 1980 that earned them a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. But it ended with a heartbreaking loss in the Round of 32. The 1981 DePaul basketball team was loaded and came out hungry for redemption. From late November to […]
DePaul was coming off a disappointing season in 1977 where injuries prevented the Blue Demons from gaining any consistency. Ray Meyer’s program had been consistently running a step behind Notre Dame and Marquette, their rivals as independent Catholic basketball programs in the Midwest. In 1978, DePaul made a huge step forward, joining the Irish and […]
The DePaul basketball program came into the 1977 season on a high. They were coming off a Sweet 16 trip in ’76, a run that ended an 11-year NCAA Tournament drought. The key players were mostly back in the fold. But while the program was trending in the right direction, 1977 proved to be one […]
DePaul basketball came into the 1976 season needing a breakthrough. Ray Meyer’s program hadn’t made the NCAA Tournament since 1965. While making the NCAA field was considerably more difficult than it is today—only 32 teams would make it in ’76, and that was the result of a recent expansion—it still had the Blue Demons lagging […]
Ray Meyer spent the early-to-mid 1970s gradually building the DePaul basketball program back into prominence at a time when Al McGuire’s Marquette and Digger Phelps’ Notre Dame teams ruled the roost for Catholic college hoops in the Midwest. The 1975 DePaul edition was getting closer—while they wouldn’t what make was then just a 32-team NCAA […]
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, […]
Ray Meyer’s DePaul program was riding high, coming off the old coach’s first Final Four appearance in 1979 and the key players back in the fold. There were great expectations for the 1980 DePaul basketball team, and the Blue Demons lived up to those expectations almost every step of the way—until a sad end proved […]