No one knew quite what to expect from the DePaul Blue Demons when they took the court for their season opener against Western Illinois Wednesday night. That’s right. Their season opener. On December 23.
 
While every other team in the BIG EAST had long since kick-started their season - Seton Hall, St. John’s  and Marquette had already played nine games while Creighton, Villanova and Xavier had eight games under their respective belts going into Wednesday - the Blue Demons were about to take the court for the first time in 287 days.
 
Yes, the last time DePaul played meaningful basketball was when they dropped Xavier 71-67 in a first-round game of the BIG EAST Tournament back on March 11 before the coronavirus canceled the rest of the tournament and all of March Madness.
 
But while the rest of the country pretty much got their seasons off the ground around Thanksgiving, all DePaul had to show for the first month of their 2020-21 campaign was a string of postponements and cancellations that left the Demons as the last major conference team to play a game this season.
 
DePaul head coach Dave Leitao used the term “traumatic “ to describe how the lack of games and practices have affected his players as they sat and watched the rest of the nation get their seasons underway while the Demons sat through two separate COVID pauses.
 
“There’s angst, confusion, anger, all those things that go through 18-to-22-year olds who don’t know what to do with those emotions,” Leitao said. “Their minds are all over the place. From March until this moment, to say their minds have been all over the place is an understatement.”
 
So for a team that spent more time in quarantine than in practice for much of the past month, how did the Blue Demons fare after finally getting their season started?
 
Well, they’re still undefeated.
 
The Blue Demons spotted the Leathernecks a 2-0 lead to open the game, then scored the next 12 points before pulling out to a 44-25 lead at the half as DePaul used all that pent-up energy to roll to a 91-72 victory over Western Illinois.
 
The victory was all the more impressive given the fact that DePaul played the game with just eight scholarship players as program stalwarts Romeo Weems and Jaylen Butz were among the missing for this contest.
 
“I have to say, with a limited roster, how doggone proud I am of these guys,” Leitao said. “To come out to play as organized as we did with very, very limited practice time speaks volumes to who they are as young men. They’ve been often criticized and the program criticized because of what we’ve been through. But I think these guys have tremendous character and resiliency to have been through what they’ve been through and come out today with seven and a half (scholarship) guys and put 91 points on the board against a pretty good Western Illinois team.”
 
Before tipoff, Leitao said all the locker room talk was pretty much about the game, but he also did address the long-awaited start to DePaul’s season and how they could make a statement in their first game back.
 
“We hadn’t played one game yet so we owed it to ourselves and we owe it to the game to put our best foot forward,” Leitao said.
 
And Charlie Moore and Javon Freeman-LIberty did just that as Moore finished with a game-high 22 points while Freeman-Liberty, a transfer from Valparaiso, finished with 19 points, eight rebounds and six assists.
 
Leitao gushed about the 6-4 junior’s performance in his first game as a Blue Demon.
 
“He’s a really good basketball player,” Leitao said. “He’s got tremendous potential and I think it’s because he’s a tremendous young man. He puts the work in, he’s got a tremendous amount of humility and he knows there’s a lot of growth (potential) and I think that’s part of the reason why he made the move to come to DePaul. What we saw today is just the beginning.”    
 
Moore said there was some trepidation before the game that something might go wrong, like yet another cancellation. Which made tipoff a very special moment for this bunch of Blue Demons.
 
“It was a relief,” Moore said. “Having had several games cancelled and seeing other teams play, we were just anxious to get out there and play and show the work that we’ve been putting in. It was a great feeling to get back on the court for me and my teammates.”
 
The good news for the Blue Demons was that despite the lack of practice time and some key personnel not being in uniform, opening night went off without a hitch. The bad news is the schedule will pick up in intensity in a hurry for the Demons. Once they get on the other side of Christmas, they will travel east for three straight road games at Providence on Dec. 27 and at UConn on Dec. 30 before wrapping things up with a visit to St. John’s to open the new year on Jan. 2. That’s three conference games in a seven-day span for a team that has yet to play a single conference game. Consider this win over Western Illinois the Blue Demons’ lone tuneup for conference play.
 
“Providence is right around the corner and knowing how good they are and what they challenge us with, we’re going to have to be much better than we were today,” Leitao said.
 
No one knows for sure how the rest of the season will play out, whether there will be more COVID pauses, whether the Blue Demons’ upcoming road trip will go smoothly. But for one night, at least, DePaul was again among the living in the college basketball world. Playing ball again for the first time in 287 days. An early Christmas present not just for DePaul fans, but for the Blue Demons program as a whole.
 
Now, on to BIG EAST play for DePaul. We hope.
 
 Or as Freeman-Liberty said, “Definitely fingers crossed.”