Thursday, April 3, 2025
Despite Florida’s early-season criticism, Gators arrive in San Antonio validated as Final Four nears
UConn lands point guard as Silas Demary transfers to Huskies from Georgia
Wednesday, April 2, 2025
Kevin Willard quote book: Villanova introduction
Tuesday, April 1, 2025
Dan Geriot introduced at Iona, promises forward thinking in reshaping Gaels’ program and roster
Doug Bruno’s greatest achievement is not his record, but his legacy after almost 40 years at DePaul
By Ray Floriani (@rfloriani)
For nearly four decades, he was on the sidelines. This past season kept him out due to health reasons.
Doug Bruno wanted to be back in his normal role and doing what he loves best: Game planning and teaching his team fundamentals and life lessons. On his own decision, it was not to be.
Several days ago, the veteran and venerable DePaul women’s basketball coach called it a career.
The exact count was 38 years and a record of 786-402. Beyond the wins, losses and accolades, understand this: Doug Bruno was a DePaul and Chicago institution. Mikan? Meyer? Aguirre? You had best add Bruno to the list of Blue Demon legends as well.
Bruno played his high school ball at Quigley Preparatory Seminary South in Chicago. Legendary coach Ray Meyer recruited Bruno to DePaul. Bruno accepted Meyer’s offer and has been a fixture in Lincoln Park ever since. He played at DePaul from 1969 through 1973. Following his graduation, he spent a year spent as a boys’ assistant coach at Parker High School, and the following year in a similar position at St. Vincent DePaul High School. Bruno then moved to his alma mater as the head women’s coach from 1976 through 1978, before leaving to guide the Chicago Hustle of the Women’s Professional Basketball League for two seasons. It was back on campus after that, as Bruno served as a men’s assistant coach at Loyola from 1980 through 1988 before finally returning to DePaul for his second stint in 1988 that became a place to call home.
Bruno’s introduction to women’s basketball was memorable. It was 1975, and Bruno, all of 25 years of age, was asked to coach the women’s basketball team at DePaul. He took the job, adding to several existing duties in the DePaul athletic department. That first year, he led the Blue Demons to an 11-10 record. He found out a lot regarding the state of the game and the manner in which coaches at all women’s programs had to battle for every possible resource.
Half a century ago, there were no charter flights for away games, no contests staged in huge arenas nor any television coverage to speak of. It was a time in which Bruno had to fight for uniforms, practice time, ways to get to games—usually with him driving a van he purchased—and getting games. Meals on the road? McDonald’s.
There was no full-time staff. Virtually all the head coaches had other duties in the school or full-time jobs outside of DePaul. Bruno, in fact, was informed in that first season that because he was already an athletic department employee, he would not be paid extra for his coaching duties. The whole experience proved a revelation, lasting through his career in the women’s game.
Several years ago he told Global Sport Matters, “all of a sudden, you start to understand how hard the fighting is for the women in our society.”
It was beyond X’s and O’s, as he added, “my job was to grow and develop female leadership.”
Bruno and UConn’s Geno Auriemma coached against each other, and later with each other. They have been friends for years. Auriemma took the time at a press conference in Spokane where his Huskies were playing in the NCAA Tournament to share his thoughts on Bruno. The two guided the U.S. national team, with Auriemma as head coach and Bruno assisting, to Olympic gold medals in 2012 and 2016.
“There haven’t been a lot of people in the history of women’s basketball that have given as much to the game as he has,” Auriemma said of Bruno. “He’s an institution. I don’t think there’s a kid in the Midwest—name all the states, I don’t care. Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois—they know someone or they themselves have been to Doug Bruno’s basketball camp over the years.”
Bruno’s camp has been in existence since 1980, with over 80,000 girls aged 7-18 attending over the years. The motto for his camp is expert instruction, proper discipline and loving the game. It is no coincidence that these are the cornerstones of his message imparted to his DePaul women’s players for decades.
Throughout his coaching career, Bruno was always searching for innovative ways to improve himself and his program. Bruno subscribes to the eye test in evaluating players. He also has an interest in, and utilizes, tempo-free statistics. After covering his games, he would ask what offensive efficiency or points per possession I had. We would compare results. Bruno also felt a new possession started after a shot or turnover. We discussed the differences, as yours truly uses the KenPom method, where a possession ends when the opposition gets the ball. Those discussions would be short after a game, but more lengthy when we would meet at a Big East media day.
Bruno also had a pet peeve about double-doubles. He felt a more deserving classification would be if a player had double figures in two or more of the rebounding, assist, steal or block categories.
A favorite memory of Doug Bruno from this writer’s perspective had to do with more than the game’s outcome. Truthfully, I cannot remember who emerged victorious that night. Several years ago, DePaul was visiting Seton Hall. That season I was usually seated next to a young lady, a sophomore writing for Seton Hall’s student newspaper, The Setonian. As the game went on, she told me she had to interview the visiting coach and was nervous. After the game, prior to the interviews, I reached out to Doug and told him the situation. He said not to worry.
In our interview session, Doug reached out and greeted the young lady with a handshake. He asked her name, year in school, hometown and major. He then answered every question politely and thoroughly. At the close of the interview, he told the young lady, “thank you for your coverage and your support of women’s basketball.”
Vintage Doug Bruno. Telling that story to those who know him personally, no one is really surprised.
“Doug will go down as not only a Hall of Fame coach and the face of DePaul women’s basketball,” Big East commissioner Val Ackerman said, “but as a tireless mentor and advocate for his players and one of the fiercest champions of women’s basketball the sport has ever known.”
Additional plaudits came from DePaul athletic director DeWayne Peevy, who stated, “Doug’s extraordinary impact on DePaul University and the game of women’s basketball is nothing short of legendary. For nearly four decades, Doug has been the heart and soul of our program, elevating it to national prominence while setting a standard of excellence that transcends wins and losses.”
The resume shows 786 wins at DePaul, 18th in Division I history. Included are 25 NCAA Tournament appearances, 19 conference titles, four Sweet 16 appearances and 221 weeks in the AP Top 25 poll under his guidance. Fifteen of his DePaul players were drafted by WNBA teams, including two-time Sixth Player of the Year Allie Quigley. Bruno also navigated the program smoothly through several conference changes. The Blue Demons played in the North Star, Great Midwest, and Conference USA before joining their present Big East affiliation. Each of the conference stops along the way saw at least one conference title.
Bruno would have liked to keep coaching, but knew the time was right to step down. He had the utmost praise for Jill Pizzotti, who stepped in and took over during his absence.
“Jill’s leadership of our program has been exemplary,” Bruno said, “as has been the extra effort of our entire staff.”
While the school goes on a national search—his personal choice is Pizzotti—for his successor, Bruno will stay on at DePaul as the special assistant to the vice president/director of athletics for women’s basketball.
“I owe my professional athletic life to DePaul University,” Bruno said in a statement. “Starting with coach Ray Meyer offering me a scholarship in 1968 and continuing through my athletic department roles as ticket manager, facilities director, academic advisor, athletic administrator and head women’s basketball coach, DePaul University has been my home for 44 years.”
DePaul will still be home. Bruno obviously will allow his successor to run his or her own program. He will be there for guidance and advice if needed. That’s a great thing for all coaches and players in the DePaul program. It’s great for all who love the women’s game. It’s great to know that someone who has given so much to it, on and off the floor, will still be very much a part of it.
Monday, March 31, 2025
A belated postmortem on St. John’s, focusing more on what this year was and less on how it ended
Sunday, March 30, 2025
Duke buries Alabama, heads back to Final Four
By Sam Federman (@Sam_Federman)
NEWARK, N.J. — With a rousing ovation from Duke’s quasi-home crowd inside the Prudential Center, the Blue Devils put the finishing touches on yet another dominant performance against Alabama, winning 85-65 to book a trip to the Final Four.
Duke is a historically good basketball team. Now 35-3, ACC double champions, and East regional champions, the Blue Devils taking down the Crimson Tide isn’t something that people didn’t see coming. But to hold the nation’s fourth-ranked offense to its second-worst output of the season, 0.89 points per possession, and to lead from start to finish in doing so, is.
This group of Blue Devils may be one of the best teams in recent memory in college basketball, and they’ll have the chance to prove that next week in San Antonio. But for this program, it’s the standard.
For most programs, they’d be at least satisfied with getting to the Elite 8 in year two with a young head coach, but at Duke, it’s the bare minimum. Jon Scheyer has repeatedly discussed how every single decision that the staff and team made since the day of that defeat has come down to making it back to that moment, and capitalizing, especially knowing that he had a truly special talent in Cooper Flagg coming into the program.
Flagg has lived up to the hype, if not exceeding it, but the success of everybody around him coming together to form this superteam has been a credit to those decisions.
One of those decisions, taking Sion James, a transfer from Tulane, has helped bolster the backcourt throughout the year. And even though his Duke journey didn’t start until his fifth year in college, he understands what it means to wear the jersey, while his history at a smaller program also allows him valuable perspective on what makes Duke special.
“(Making the Final Four) is the expectation,” James said. “Because of how it’s been here, but it’s not a guarantee by any means. Just because we go to Duke doesn’t mean that we’re going to be in the Final Four every year, it’s a grind.”
While Final Fours are always special, it takes winning two more games after that to truly leave an indelible mark on the Duke basketball legacy. This year’s team has the second highest KenPom net rating of any since that metric started in 1996-97, trailing only the 1998-99 Blue Devils.
But that Duke team, despite finishing 37-2 and going 16-0 in a strong ACC, and losing two games by a combined five points, isn’t typically mentioned in the conversation of greatest college basketball team ever. It’s because it didn’t win on Monday night.
If anything has been proven throughout this season, it’s that Duke doesn’t need to do anything out of character to beat anybody in the country, really by any margin it wants. It all comes down to execution.
“How can we continue to be us with different distractions and different environment,” Scheyer said is the main thing on his mind heading into the Final Four. “So that’s up to us to help as a coaching staff, but I know our guys will be excited and up for the challenge.”
It’s a coaching staff that lost quasi-defensive coordinator Jai Lucas to the head coaching position at Miami before the ACC tournament, but the defense looked far from uncoordinated.
Kon Knueppel played one of his best defensive games of the season against Alabama. Khaman Maluach continues to grow, and stuck with Mark Sears plenty on switches, while the ultimate trump card of Flagg’s versatility has continued to wreak havoc all tournament long. Sears didn’t score until the final minutes of the opening half, with Alabama coach Nate Oats deciding to sit him on the bench for a few minutes twice in favor of Aden Holloway.
Duke forced the Tide into much longer possessions than they’re used to, switching ball screens with length and discipline to limit any sort of advantages that Alabama typically creates.
“We have a luxury to have a guy with Khaman where he can really play different coverages,” Scheyer said. “We have a 7-foot-2 guy switching onto one of the best guards in the country and he’s doing a pretty good job moving his feet.”
There were points in the game where Duke completely shut off the paint, and there were points in the game where Duke completely shut off Alabama’s ability to get threes off. And throughout the game, it was the Tide’s inability to find either that illustrated Duke’s dominance.
No matter what gameplan you want to throw at the Blue Devils, they can take it away. After all, they’re top five in the country in both offense and defense, having won games by 20-plus points without going to 60 possessions, and going above 70 possessions. It’s the combination of size, skill, shooting, strength, and overall maturity that makes this Duke team truly special.
If you let it play the game on its terms, you’re going to lose. You can try to play it on your own terms, but you’re still going to lose, and probably by a lot.
It may not be the exact same as when Mike Krzyzewski roamed the sidelines. The team seems markedly less hateable to the average college basketball fan (while my editor will disagree with his Carolina-blue tinted glasses, the sentiment has permeated the sport). Many who hated past Duke stars can’t find it in them to hate Flagg the same way. But that doesn’t mean Coach K’s presence isn’t still felt in some way, especially for Scheyer.
“I’ve always wanted to make him proud,” Scheyer said. “I want his legacy to be how our program continues to be right there as a top program. So obviously, there’s a responsibility and you feel a pride.”
And now, San Antonio awaits.