Ex-UD basketball coach Purnell tries to revive DePaul

Blue Demons coach has long history of improving programs.

LAKE BUENA VISTA — Anguish was clearly visible on DePaul University basketball coach Oliver Purnell’s face as his team blew a 10-point lead and dropped a one-point decision to Minnesota in the first round of the Old Spice Classic on Thursday.

The 58-year-old Purnell also had his highs and lows during the Blue Demons’ win over Texas Tech in the second round, too, at times grabbing his head and stomping along the sidelines.

The former University of Dayton coach is in his second year at the Chicago school, leaving security, a job in a top league with Clemson and a familiar region in the Southeast to try to breathe life into a dormant program.

“I think we’ve got a chance to make a major leap from year one,” he said. “It’s not a big secret what we have to do — get two or three good recruiting classes and grow them up with positive experiences. It’s not a secret. It’s just hard to do.”

Nobody knows that better than Purnell, who may have no equal in college basketball when it comes to reviving teams that have fallen on hard times.

He did it at Radford, Old Dominion and, of course, during a nine-year stint at Dayton. In the two years before coming to UD in 1994-95, the Flyers went 4-26 and 6-21 and dismissed coach Jim O’Brien.

Four months after Purnell’s arrival, UD also temporarily found itself without a league when the Great Midwest merged with the Metro Conference to form Conference USA. The Flyers had dipped so low that they were the only Great Midwest team left behind.

But UD was taken in by the Atlantic 10, and Purnell slowly put the pieces back together, mostly with recruits few others wanted, save for Troy’s Brooks Hall. He won at least 21 games in his last four seasons, claiming the A-10 tournament in his final season.

UD went from a four-win team under O’Brien to a four-seed in the NCAA tournament through Purnell’s handiwork.

“I obviously enjoy the challenge. I love the feeling while you’re doing it and you’ve got a program you feel can compete with anybody in the conference and anybody in the country — in particular at a place where people really appreciate it. Dayton was certainly one of those places.

“It was on lean times before we got there, and to get to know the people at Dayton and watch them really celebrate as we won the A-10 championship, it’s a great feeling.”

Andy Farrell, a Carroll High School and UD grad, is in his fourth season with Purnell as director of basketball operations. He said the one thing being modeled to the staff is patience.

“He’s got a blueprint for success,” Farrell said. “He has a plan and doesn’t deviate from the plan. He knows we may take some short-term sacrifice, but he’s done it so many times. He doesn’t sweat the small things. He realizes there’s an end goal.”

Larry Hansgen has been the WHIO Radio announcer for UD games for three decades and saw the revival first-hand. He believes Purnell’s successor, Brian Gregory, was able to take the program another notch higher, and there is great optimism about current coach Archie Miller’s ability to nudge it ahead even more.

“(Purnell) took the program from completely irrelevant to being a national program again,” Hansgen said. “BG took it up from a recruiting standpoint. He raised the overall recruiting level and recruiting bar. Archie is kind of doing the same thing.

“But it’s building on the stuff Oliver did. Oliver really allowed BG and now Archie to go someplace and say, ‘Hi, I’m from the University of Dayton, and I’d like to talk to you.’ They can knock on doors Oliver couldn’t ever have knocked on.”

Purnell has a mix of memories from UD — beating Maryland and Arizona in the Maui Invitational and Kentucky in a “neutral-site” game in Cincinnati. But he also endured the shocking death of center Chris Daniels, whom Purnell called “just a tremendous young man.”

He may be immersed in the DePaul culture, but his longest stay at any one stop was at UD, and it definitely left an imprint on him.

“Every once in awhile, you think back and there’s kind of a glow in my heart when I think about Dayton,” he said.

When UD fans think about Purnell, they likely have that same warm feeling.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2125 or dharris@ DaytonDailyNews.com.

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