18 Depaul

A small trophy made of marble and glass sits on coach Pat Kennedy's desk. The engraving reads: CONGRATULATIONS ON THE RESURGENCE OF DEPAUL BASKETBALL. Two months after he received that keepsake from his staff, at a surprise 48th birthday party last January, Kennedy was directing the Blue Demons in their first NCAA tournament game in eight years. DePaul lost that opening-round game to Kansas, but there's no denying that the Blue Demons, who were coming off a 3-23 season when Kennedy took over in June 1997, are back among the nation's top 25.

Though the Blue Demons lost their leading scorer and rebounder, 6'6" sophomore Quentin Richardson (the 18th player taken in the NBA draft), and third-highest scorer, Paul McPherson, Kennedy has replaced them with two other blue-chippers from Chicago, freshmen Andre Brown and Imari Sawyer. The 6'9" Brown was a McDonald's All-America power forward, but he will have to jostle for minutes with 6'7" Bobby Simmons and 6'9" Lance Williams, both juniors, as well as 7-foot sophomore Steve Hunter, who has as much potential as any center in the nation. The size in the frontcourt will make up for a serious lack of it in the backcourt, where the 6'2" Sawyer will team with 5'7" junior sparkplug Rashon Burno, who was second in Conference USA in assists (4.6 a game) last season. The obvious question of how DePaul will replace Richardson's offense and star quality is not that big a concern to the Blue Demons. "When Q had the ball last year, a lot of times the rest of the team would stand around," Burno says. "It was like the Michael Jordan syndrome." DePaul will now have a more balanced attack, which could mean more trophies in Kennedy's future.

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