DePaul basketball fires head coach Tony Stubblefield in his third season
CHICAGO, Ill. - DePaul basketball has fired head coach Tony Stubblefield.
According to a release Monday afternoon, Vice President and Director of Athletics DeWayne Peevy announced Stubblefield was relieved of his duties in the middle of his third season as head coach. The Blue Demons are 3-15 so far this season and winless in Big East play.
Stubblefield ends his tenure 28-54 with a winning percentage of .341 in his two-and-a-half seasons at DePaul,
The release notes special Assistant to the Head Coach Matt Brady has been appointed as interim head coach.
"After evaluating the current state of our men’s basketball program, a decision was made to make a change in the head coaching position," Peevy said in a statement. "We want to thank Coach Stubblefield for his hard work and determination over the last two-plus seasons to move our basketball program forward through a new era for DePaul Athletics.
The struggles at DePaul have been well-documented since the program moved from Conference USA to the Big East in 2005.
The Big East has become one of the best conferences in college basketball. Big East teams have won four of the past 12 NCAA Tournament championships and have sent an average of five teams to the NCAA Tournament per year since 2018. It became one of the most ruthless conferences in America once Ed Cooley departed Big East power Providence for Big East historical power Georgetown.
VILLANOVA, PA - FEBRUARY 08: Head coach Tony Stubblefield of the DePaul Blue Demons calls out to his team against the Villanova Wildcats in the first half at Finneran Pavilion on February 8, 2023 in Villanova, Pennsylvania. The Villanova Wildcats def
Not all the struggles at DePaul can be pinned on Stubblefield, however.
Injuries hampered the team all season, preventing the Blue Devils from playing at full strength and from finding a consistent lineup that works. Da'Sean Nelson and Chico Carter are both averaging in double figures this season as two bright spots.
Going deeper, though, means evaluating DePaul in a modern-day sense. According to FOX Sports college basketball reporter John Fanta, DePaul's Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) budget is around $250,000, whereas other Big East programs, like Villanova, reportedly have an NIL budget in the millions.
Combine that with the on-court results, and DePaul is simply not competitive. That cannot be the case with a program that has as rich of a history as DePaul while also competing in the same conference as the reigning national champion UCONN and coaches like Cooley, Dan Hurley, Shaka Smart, Rick Pitino, Sean Miller and Shaheen Holloway.
In fact, the Blue Demons haven't been overly competitive since joining the Big East as the program has averaged 5.3 conference wins per season. Overall, DePaul is 96-281 in Big East play.
The next coach will have to make DePaul relevant both on the court and in the modern sense.
"Unfortunately, we did not meet our goals," Peevy said in a statement.